Aeromexico, the largest airline in Mexico, obtains a considerable amount of its revenues from Mexico-US flights (58%); but not so much the other way around (flights from the US to Mexico: 28%). For an airline business, this fact implied a long-term unsustainable situation in terms of people, time and budget.

On the other hand, historically there have been xenophobic conversations in the United States, that were proven to raise since the arrival of President Trump. Hatred was at its highest level, and the intention of building a wall was more radical on the southern border.

The challenge for the brand was to increase penetration Americans flying to Mexico, in a context where the political situation was becoming more aggressive; and at the same time reinforcing and reaffirming the statement and position that Aeromexico had been building for the past 3 years, according to which "There are no borders within us".

According to the Department of Homeland Security of the US, Mexican immigration goes as far as the 1800s settling in on the south, meaning that a big percentage of Mexican ascendance in the US, didn’t even know it.

Having this in mind, the brand developed an action that integrated what Americans are proven to love: discounts, with what southern Americans claimed to hate: Mexico. Aeroméxico created DNA Discounts, a promotion that gave discounts to Americans based on the results of their DNA tests. The more Mexicans they were, the more discount they got.

Aeromexico targeted the people who were more resistant to fly to Mexico decided to do an on line campaign that would put the brand in the middle of the southern American ideals and beliefs. After all, how can you reject something you got inside?

The brand developed a controversial online film that proved "There are no borders within us". It was published in 2018, and during its promotion in the brand's channels including YouTube, it achieved an increase in sales of 18%. However, during the following months, the social listening team noticed that whenever the issue of the wall on the border with Mexico caught the media's attention, Google's searches of "Tickets to Mexico" in the United States increased as well.

The decision to wait for the precise moment to boost the campaign on social networks was made. That crucial moment was the US longest Government Shutdown during President Trump's administration; the moment that monopolized all the media, the time when people needed to raise their voices against the policies of President Trump. But how could we reach a much wider audience and create a conversation without having a significant online media budget?

Aeromexico's social networks did not have, the level of influence in the United States needed to reach the target, that's why we decided to use something that many times is taken for granted: the corporate hierarchy of the agency´s network.

On January 9th, the campaign video was posted on social networks of the headquarters agency: Twitter with 300.000 followers, and Facebook with 430.000. Some days after, CNN included it in its news network, and the video began to spread quickly through all online media and social networks. In just one week: Time, Fox News, The New York Times, ABC, CBS, and more than 140 online media around the world talked about the campaign without a single dollar of paid media. The action demonstrated its relevance by initiating a social media debate where celebrities, journalists, writers, activists and millions of people participated in the main social media platforms.

-The sales of Aeromexico tickets from the United States to Mexico had a historical increase of 33.7%.

-The brand’s top of mind and spontaneous recall reached historical peaks of 91%.

-166 countries worldwide spoke and debated the campaign.

-More than 1.6 billion impressions.

-More than 1 billion in reach.

-Increase in US search "Tickets to Mexico": 214%.

-Increase in US search "Vacations to Mexico": 321%

-Increase in US search "Aeromexico": 177%

-The video went viral with more than 25 M views the first week on different social media platforms.

-More than 320,000 shares in social networks, just in the first week.

-All brand indicators in terms of affinity, confidence, quality, service and uniqueness rose between 4% and 7%.

-Only 4% negative feeling which is totally unusual, especially for an airline on social networks.