2014 Gold Best Creative Solution or Innovation

Client British Airways

How did the campaign make a difference? British Airways operate in an incredibly competitive marketplace where costs, networks and schedules dominate the reasons for flying. Choice of carrier has become a very rational decision. It needed to find a new way to differentiate and bring more emotion into flight.

This campaign raised awareness of the breadth of destinations and frequency of flights offered from London in a way that could cut through the clutter.

British Airways combined technology with creativity to create a powerful emotional connection with the brand – the world's first billboard that could react to a plane flying overhead.

Despite only two media sites, the campaign reached over 350 million people globally and was the most talked about piece of airline advertising in 2013.

Strategy A very simple and emotional insight provided a springboard for the project: when children look into the sky and see a plane flying overhead, to them it is magical. The challenge then became how to encapsulate this, bring it to life and convey that childhood sense of wonder and amazement to everyone?

Using the insight, BA built the world's first outdoor billboards that could react to BA planes flying overhead. Placements in Piccadilly Circus and along the M4 were chosen to catch the relevant audiences and be under a BA flight path.

Creativity Whilst the billboard execution needed to be simple in its nature, the technology behind them was anything but.

Using a special ADSB antenna, the system tracked every aircraft's transponder data within 200km. This allowed the advert to target the exact moment a BA plane flew overheard and sync this with video of a child pointing into the sky, right at the plane flying overhead.

Importantly, BA also monitored the weather so that if it was cloudy and no plane could be seen, the BA ad wouldn't be shown. Budget was maximised by creating a new way in which outdoor advertising is paid for – a completely new 'interrupt' capability that allowed the campaign to interrupt traditional static ads that were currently being displayed.

The ads not only displayed the flight number and where the plane was flying from but dynamic retail messaging also updated on a daily basis, to display targeted copy for each route: live pricing, special offers and weather.

Results Over £750,000 media savings were made from the new trading model of buying on a 'pay per play' basis. 360 articles increased reach as the campaign made the news in 118 countries. Even competitors were moved to praise the campaign – with American Airlines tweeting 'That's a very cute billboard by British Airways!' and Virgin Holidays' Head of Retail saying 'Great marketing by BA, just wait until you look up in Piccadilly Circus!'. Domino's even did a spoof using the line #lookdown.

There were over 43,300 unique visits to the ba.com/lookup page, 1,360,000 video views, 45 million earned social impressions. Some of the most influential publications, like Mashable, helped generate over 20,000 shares and the hashtag #lookup trended on Twitter after being used more than 3,400 times.

It all made the most talked about piece of airline advertising in 2013 – capturing people's imaginations and inspired many to make a booking.