A two-fold solution:First, we developed a new form of free media based on an observation: everyone looks at the gate boarding monitors – no matter how busy they are. So why not put our acquisition message on them? Since the monitors already existed, we incurred no media costs and ensured nearly 100% impression by this captive audience. In the future, we plan to use these for branding messages and expect to see it adopted by other airlines.

Second, we used new technology to overcome a difficult sign-up process. The traditional Rapid Rewards online sign-up process is lengthy and is not WAP enabled. So we created a new SMS text sign-up process in which the user can sign up on their mobile device.

Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards views budgets and numeric results pertaining to marketing efforts as privileged information so we are unable to report specific conversion/revenue figures. However, analytic estimates project the ROI on the first year of this programme to be +295%.In fact, this campaign has had such a statistically significant impact on all relevant figures associated with the acquisition process (visitors, new members, revenue, etc.) that the client has approved the extension of the SMS call-to-action to all in-airport advertising (jet bridge poster, in-flight magazine, etc.) and modified it to fit alternate OOH environments (sporting events, festivals, etc.).