Four months after launching United's Fly the Friendly Skies launch efforts, the agency created a truly integrated and compelling campaign highlighting United Airline’s commitment to Team USA. As the official sponsor of Team USA, United has been flying the athletes to and from training, competitions, trials and the Olympic Games for over 30 years. The integrated campaign highlights 12 Team USA athletes as they prepare for the Games in Sochi. The campaign is an expression of the team spirit that exists between United and Olympic athletes and their common endeavor to succeed at the Games. It’s a fun, whimsical approach that was intended to cut through the heavy emotional clutter that is typically connected to the Olympic Games advertising through the stories of our athletes. This was delivered through a three phased approach: a journey with these athletes, as they prepared, competed, and returned home.

With the Olympics having just ended, results are somewhat premature; however, based upon initial reactions from Clients and consumers, the campaign was well-received. Ace Metrix, a leading TV analytics company awarded United with the Bronze medal for most effective Olympic sponsor to advertise during the games. United was not only considered a “surprise” as airlines typically represent a small number of new executions on a year by year basis, but by the mere fact that United’s investment was a fraction of those other long standing Olympic sponsors.

Ten days before the Opening Ceremonies, we began to seed the campaign through OOH layouts, Athlete tweets & a sneak peek of the TV spot online - allowing fans a glimpse of what was to come. United unveiled their TV support in the Opening Ceremony, showcasing the Athletes onboard, taking advantage of the inflight amenities. Executions for newspaper, magazines and OOH units rolled out nationwide. United continued the story online as athletes shared their journey to Sochi, inclusive of behind the scenes; all of which was aggregated #TeamUSAfriendly. Partner programs then began their support with Buzzfeed, New York Times, and Yahoo! Sports enhancing the sponsorship by enabling the consumers to learn more about not only the athletes, but United’s historical role with TeamUSA. This included 12 unique videos focusing on the athletes preparing, competing and coming home from Sochi while the NYTimes page took a look at the facts, figures, and memorable moments from the past Olympic Games.