Support WestJet’s launch of the new international 787 Dreamliner and drive revenue with an associated sale. WestJet competes head- to- head daily with Air Canada for seat sales in Canada, U.S and Europe. Air Canada dwarfs WestJet as a corporation and has much deeper pockets to fund sales activities. Unable to compete dollar for dollar in marketing might, we needed to use brains over brawn and cut through the regular sales clutter.

WestJet is now a global player, so we chose a globally recognized social non-event, event to make that point. Tap into the zeitgeist of social influencing hyperbole by creating an airborne parody of Fyre Festival: Flyre Festival. A Parody of the famous Netflix documentary teaser, given an aviation inspired twist and linked to a real sale.

WestJet competes head-to-head daily with Air Canada for seat sales in Canada, U.S and Europe. Air Canada dwarfs WestJet as a corporation. Unable to compete dollar for dollar in marketing might, Flyre Festival instead used the equity earned by WestJet's legendary April Fools pranks to cut through the regular sales clutter. It aped a social media phenomenon with a highly entertaining spoof and then converted that attention to a seat sale of the same name.

On March 31, WestJet staff teased the Flyre Festival by posting a solid teal square on their personal social channels along with the hashtag #FlyreFestival — the same tactic used by the influencers who helped launch the original festival. Then, on April 1, we unveiled the Flyre Festival promo video on YouTube, supported by a social strategy across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The video perfectly replicated the flash of the original, scene-by-scene. The video drove to WestJet.com and the Flyre Sale. A display banner complimented the social strategy.

The video reached 4.05 million views on YouTube in just five days and trended up to #30 globally. The campaign garnered a 90% positive sentiment online, unheard of in the airline industry. But the best results were from the seat sale: a year- over- year increase of 20.3%. The stunt was also widely covered by Canadian media, including Strategy Magaz ine, iHeartRadio, Calgary Herald, CityNews (Toronto and

Montreal), CTV News, Global News and the CBC. Additionally, we had coverage south of the border on Yahoo News, the New York Post, the Washington Post and many others. The greatest achievement, though, was creating huge exposure for the 787 Dreamliner and supporting the airline’s international ambitions.