Overview

When Shannon Airport wanted to generate interest in new early departures for business travellers looking to reach London, they asked Digital Dialog to create a campaign to raise their profile among selected target audiences. Shannon is home to more than 110 overseas companies and attracts both visitors and business travellers moving regularly between Ireland and the UK. With the launch of earlier flight departures to London Heathrow and to reach a wider audience, Shannon Airport wanted a specific campaign to press home the advantages of using the airport.

Brief

The key target areas for the campaign were the counties of Clare, Galway, Cork, Tipperary and Limerick which were close enough to benefit from the airport’s new departure times. Our brief was to show how easy and productive it would be for business travellers to fly directly into London Heathrow from Shannon Airport. The key message was that by using Shannon travellers could get a lot more done in the day due to earlier departures to London. With easier access and early departures we would show the airport in a new light to both new and seasoned business travellers.

Strategy

With a precise understanding of the demographic and campaign objectives we first looked at the airport’s key selling points and developed these into the core of the advertising and marketing campaign. We identified key words and messages that would appeal to the target audiences and used these in conjunction with the airport’s key USPs: shorter queues and easier parking which would appeal to travellers who wanted to make the whole experience hassle-free. By identifying what the business traveller would benefit from, we tailored the key messages and platforms to achieve maximum coverage of the new services.

Through Facebook, LinkedIn and display ads we were able to talk directly to the business community in Ireland outlining Shannon’s location and new timetable. This allowed us to strengthen the value proposition of using the airport when travelling to London. Our understanding of the business community and their locations to the airport were used to generate the key messages that would create interest an interest in using the airport for business trips to London.

With granular targeting on social media we focused on business professionals used to short messages with specific information. Rather than spread display ads across the usual websites we concentrated on defined strategies for websites frequented by business professionals and leveraged audience targeting to narrow down travellers with an intent for business travel. These included those in the market for flights to London who would benefit from the key selling points of location, time and convenience. Our strategy was to create a specific awareness of the airport’s services and facilities using defined keywords with key messages. We A/B tested our standard iAB ad creatives to ensure the messages were reaching the right audiences with the most productive information designed by our own digital strategists to deliver the best engagement.

Creative

Results