Spirit Airlines didn’t need an expensive ad campaign. It needed a radical promotion to teach cost conscious travelers how to fly Spirit. It needed to hug its haters and educate consumers on it’s wildly misunderstood, un-airline, a la carte business model. It needed to prove its differences from big, legacy airlines and illustrate that everything Spirit does is designed to keep fares low and save consumers money.

So, Spirit embraced its un-airline persona. It went from a lookalike airline to the most differentiated brand in travel. It trademarked its ultra-low base price as the Bare Fare. It leveraged the negative momentum and turned social media venom into education through a promotion no other airline would ever run. The Hate Thousand Miles promotion engaged customers with 8,000 FREE SPIRIT miles in exchange for spewing hate for Spirit or any other airline.

Working with airport personnel, media planners determined the optimal flight path to reach a potential of nearly 3 million passengers flying overhead. The creative team partnered with a media agency and a local farm to position and cut the crop circle using GPS technology.

To provide an answer to the mysterious crop circle, traditional billboards were placed directly outside the somewhat rural airport entrance in both directions, announcing Kansas City as the “Official Home of the Bare Fare.” Billboards directed travelers to Spirit.com to learn about Spirit’s Bare Fares and the airlines ultra-low prices.

As a brand that spends very little on paid media, the effort was measured by performance in three areas:

1. Earned media/free publicity

2. Participation and education at Spirit.com

3. Customer satisfaction measured by Net Promoter Score

The Hate Thousand Mile Giveaway generated over 400 million PR impressions. It shifted a predominately negative media narrative toward education, and even praise, for Spirit’s business model.

The campaign was featured in broadcast segments on CNBC, CNN, Fox & Friends, Good Morning America and The Today Show. And in USA Today, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Time.com, and Fast Company among others.

The promotion collected nearly 54,000 “pieces of hate,” the same number of customer emails, and deposited 400 million+ FREE SPIRIT miles to traveler accounts.

3 million customers gained understanding of the business model on Spirit.com, resulting in a 40% increase in Net Promoter Score YOY.