This week’s egtabite takes us on the world’s first crowd-sourced trip, a great initiative from leading Dutch station 538 that started by building a close relationship with a brand partner and culminated in a holiday of a lifetime for a group of lucky 538 listeners. This case is an excellent example of a strong B2B initiative leading to a highly successful B2C campaign.
The background to the campaign
538 holds regular Brand Days, which bring clients together with 538’s senior management and on-air personalities in a relaxed atmosphere to enjoy good food, entertainment and the opportunity to brainstorm about how the broadcaster can develop innovative projects for the advertiser. The Brand Days aim to convert the client/service provider relationship to one of business partners and friends. Six representatives from the advertiser and six from 538, including the CEOs of both, spend the afternoon together to explore the best match for the brand with 538’s radio, television and online properties. One example of a successful Brand Day outcome was the meeting with mobile phone manufacturer Huawei shortly after they opened their first European offices, which resulted in 538 being chosen as the media partner for the launch of the company as a new brand in the Netherlands.
 538 invited transavia, the Air France-KLM owned low-cost airline with which it had already worked with in the past, to one of its Brand Days. One idea that moved quickly from brainstorm to reality was the tansavia FlightCast, consisting of more than 40 radio shows to be broadcast on transavia flights and featuring information about the flight’s destination and popular music in that country. 538 became the airline’s audio producer, working on a number of public events as well as spot and non-spot advertising campaigns.
transavia fanflight 538: from B2B to B2C
Following the Brand Day discussions, transavia set 538 a target: to increase their Facebook fan numbers by a set amount by the end of the year. If 538 could achieve that, transavia would put their remaining social media budget into a campaign with the radio station. So was born the transavia fanflight 538, created in partnership with the activation bureau Dorst & Lesser.
Through on-air and social media promotion over four weeks, including a Facebook app, 538 invited listeners to first pick a destination, then the in-flight music and food and even the dress code for the final party on site. In four weeks, 3 million people were introduced to the fanflight, the app realised 85,000 unique visitors, and 15,000 fans voted for the trip of their dreams. Unsurprisingly, given 538’s long association with the island, Ibiza was selected as the destination for the fanflight. Dutch tour operator Sunweb also came on board as a partner for the hotel.
180 seats were given away to listeners during the fifth and final week of the campaign, and the flight departed on 16 October. 538 exceeded transavia’s Facebook fan objectives, and in addition, 538 attracted an extra 10,000 fans for its own page.
The campaign’s success was founded on the creation of an environment in which the radio broadcaster was able to openly discuss the client’s challenges and forge a strong relationship of friends and business partners with the company. By achieving the client’s targets, 538 brought social media budget back to radio and benefited from production revenues for staging the event on behalf of transavia. The addition of Sunweb as a partner lead directly to campaigns on 538 and sister station SLAM!FM to run in early 2014.
What this means for egta members
Radio has an exceptional ability to build innovative campaigns for a huge, engaged audience. But the key message from the transavia fanflight 538 is that it all starts with developing a close relationship with the advertiser, understanding their business objectives and finding a way to become a long-term partner. |
