Dive Brief:
- Delta Air Lines is promoting its expanded routes out of Seattle with a new campaign urging adult children living in the city to visit their mothers, according to a company blog post.
- The campaign features messages from real moms of people living in Seattle, including, "Hey Babe, Visit Soon! Love, Mom" and "Stu, I'll always be here for you. Waiting. In Denver. For you to visit. Love, Mom." The handwritten notes, along with photos of the mom and her child, appear throughout Seattle on billboards, storefront posters, at local bars and other popular spots.
- Delta released a video for the campaign featuring a group of look-alike moms who descend on a coffee shop and urge the woman working behind the counter to visit her mom. The campaign also includes Major League Soccer's Seattle Sounders FC teammates and brothers Cristian and Alex Rolden, who received a special message from their mom delivered by group of look-alike moms.
Dive Insight:
Delta continues to embrace out-of-home (OOH) marketing to boost brand awareness, drive social media chatter and potentially spur flight bookings. The airline's latest campaign takes a quirky approach to promote its expanded Seattle network and build on the fact that more than 60% of the city's residents are transplants, according to data cited in the blog post. Using handwritten notes from moms and childhood photos, the airline can jokingly guilt locals into visiting their hometowns and add an air of personalization and authenticity to the effort.
The new marketing comes on the heels of Delta's campaign with Equinox Fitness in July targeting international travelers at Los Angeles International Airport and urging them to "sweat away" their jet lag. Passengers on certain flights were given a one-day gym voucher, and digital billboards located near the airport displayed rotating messages. Last year, Delta and the dating app Tinder also teamed up on #DeltaDatingWall, where they printed locations on a building in Brooklyn to allow selfie-takers to enhance their dating profiles by appearing to be world travelers.
As investment in OOH continues to grow, marketers are seeing the benefits of being able to target consumers throughout their day-to-day routines. Brands that allocate 15% of their media budgets to OOH saw a 24% lift in brand trust, a 106% boost in perception of brand quality and a 275% increase in customer loyalty, according to recent research by Rapport, IPG Mediabrands' OOH arm. OOH was also linked to a 31% lift in online advertising, 80% for paid search and 56% for social media.
