The goal was to increase traffic to London from Stockholm, Amsterdam, Madrid, Barcelona, Paris, Rome and Milan. We needed to counter the challenge of low cost operators and promote the affordability of BA flights. Establishing BA as the natural choice operator to London from target cities. Ultimately driving sales and effecting channel shift to online sales.

The Metro competition achieved a phenomenal 64% opt-in rate for regular communications from BA. The campaign ROI was outstanding; for every pound spent the campaign delivered 8.25 in return. We established the return on investment by calculating the increased bookings and the potential lifetime value of online registrations (opt-in registrations multiplied by average lifetime value of email subscribers).

Sky boxes and banners were used to dominate the paper and alert readers to the following day’s promotion. Key messages were communicated via advertorials; affordability of flights to London with BA, affordability of London as a holiday destination, BA as the operator that ‘knows London’ better than other airlines, highlight London’s wealth of sports, entertainment, cultural activities etc. Integration into the targets lifestyle was enhanced with a web based competition to drive readers online and to interact with BA.com.

Investment capabilities were enhanced through identifying common objectives with Visit London. Metro’s reach and audience offered the ideal solution for an exclusive media partnership; their flexibility allowed domination of the publication, driving interest and anticipation, imprinting London in the minds of readers. We overleveraged the budget through a highly integrated strategy allowing us to bring the creative communication to life; ads in advance copies, integrated online and innovative distribution techniques - hand distribution by characters dressed as London icons. Newspaper activity mirrored disruptive and engaging nature of the wider campaign.

Consumer insights showed that although our target leisure travellers had money and were happy to treat themselves, they regarded London as less exciting and more expensive than other European destinations. To engage them we needed to promote London as a holiday destination. Communication insights revealed that our young, urban and mobile leisure travellers had a short attention span and were very spontaneous. Therefore the media activity needed to cut through and engage them while they were thinking about the day ahead. The result was a groundbreaking three way partnership; Visit London (had similar objectives to BA and provided co-funding enabling us to increase presence and prominence) and Metro (which appealed to the target’s active and mobile lifestyles and allowed us creative flexibility to develop a bespoke and engaging print solution).