2009 Winners & Shortlists

Results and Effectiveness

By linking our advertising to Messenger conversations in real-time, we created a first as none of the world’s Messenger providers offer this opportunity. More than 175,000 users were reached in two weeks. The response rate for this operation was almost 10 times higher than for the rest of the campaign. The online campaign generated two-thirds of Etihad’s online ticket sales. The digital activity generated an ROI 8 times higher than rest of the overall campaign. With a minimum investment, this quirky execution has demonstrated that clever tailoring of the message in a highly engaged environment can produce stunning results.

Creative Execution

We tied up with world’s largest matrimonial portal, Shaadi.com, and targeted our activity around paid users, as a way to target affluent consumers. We created a first by marrying our advertising with conversations between potential partners on the new Shaadi Messenger, delivering destination fare ads tailored for them. The ads were tailored to their locations along with the destinations discussed and displayed within the chat window. A person in New York chatting with another in Delhi would see fares to India in US$ and when talking about a honeymoon in France, would see fares to Paris. When clicked, the banner led users to Etihad’s booking page and provided primed leads to the airline, all eager travelers. This ‘intuitive’ operation created a surprise, as if Etihad was reading the users’ mind.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

The brief was to entice affluent Indian consumers, in India and abroad, to take advantage of Etihad Airways’ “book early and fly later” promotional fares in August. The target audience were mainly single Indian expatriates in the USA, the UK, Germany and the UAE The one thing they have in common is matrimonial sites, where they spend a significant part of their online time. The search for a spouse back home is critically important and August is the key travel planning season. The strategy was to associate Etihad Airways with this key moment and position it as the solution to get closer to their future partner.