Consumers are increasingly wary of how their purchasing decisions are affecting the environment, especially when purchasing flights.

Sustainable Aviation Fuel is a dramatic innovation with United being the first airline to use it for operations and investing in more SAF production than any other airline. However, in a sea of empty corporate promises, it is easy to dismiss.

People are increasingly inundated with corporate sustainability messaging as 2,000+ companies now have carbon targets and ESG goals. Also, brand promises are met with skepticism, with 71% of consumers believing that brands will not deliver on promises. Due to this, it was important for our work to break through the clutter and be something consumers remember.

Our Strategy was to Draw Attention to Trash by creating lean-in moments to course-correct skepticism.

We phased our approach with all U.S. flyers by first teasing the announcement on all United Owned channels and Social. We then made the big announcement with cross channel support consisting of Linear Tentpoles, Digital Video, Social Media, OOH and High Impact Digital.

After Oscar’s big announcement, our message sustained across Social media and digital video. We built up frequency with educational videos featuring tangible ways trash was transformed to aviation fuel, and further built engagement with high impact interactive units.

We first seeded anticipation with a job listing for United’s Honorary Chief Trash Officer (CTO) on Organic Channels and paid Social.

The big reveal of Oscar the Grouch as our star CTO needed a big outlet. We put Oscar in the Oscars with a :30 ad reaching those in D.C., San Francisco, and Chicago tuned into a night all about celebrity fandom. We also broke the news on the biggest outlet possible, the New York Times homepage (19M Impressions) and at one of the biggest events, SXSW. A team projected the announcement video across Downtown Austin for 5 days, drawing crowds.

We extended reach of this announcement within YouTube, CTV, Digital Video, and high impact units on TikTok amassing 247M impressions.

We also spread the message to flyers at our key hub markets with a mix of airport OOH and billboards (74M impressions).

CTO

Impressions:

- 340M Impressions

Paid Metrics:

- Our paid announcement of Oscar took LinkedIn by storm, achieving a .96% CTR (219% above their .3% benchmark) and 45% VCR (500% above their 7% benchmark)

- YouTube not only spread our announcement (78% VCR), but also drove traffic at .42 CTR (600% above their .06% benchmark)

- Our Facebook campaign kept our message top of mind achieving 16 point lift in Campaign Awareness and increased brand equity with a 4.5 point lift in Brand Favorability