The Middle Seat Lottery is a first-of-its-kind innovation that transforms the airline seat booking system into media. Suddenly every Virgin Australia middle seat was a lottery ticket, with a chance to win unique prizes. It transformed being jammed between two people into a positive, into an exciting game played on a national level, and directly targeted at those whose experience we most wanted to change. In doing so, it effectively turned the middle seat into a media channel to deliver a simple message - that on Virgin Australia planes, even the middle seat can be wonderful.

Situation

Our research showed that fewer than 1% of passengers prefer the middle seat on flights. As a brand on a mission to make flying more uplifting, we wanted to make one of the least enjoyable parts of flying, wonderful.

Brief

Airlines constantly talk about elevating the experience of flight, but few actually deliver. We needed to bring credibility to our mission to make flying more uplifting. In order to achieve this, we needed to do less traditional media saying how great we are and turn the actual experience of flying into a media channel.

Objectives

Create mass awareness of the evolutions to our entire experience via the fameworthy onboard experience innovation.

Increase positive sentiment about an unavoidable part of our flying experience, considered by many to be one of the worst parts of flying.

Create an experience so unique that it becomes a new channel for our “Wonderful” message.

In 2022, Virgin Australia launched a new brand platform - Bring on Wonderful - with the intent to make flying a more uplifting, wonderful experience. To prove that it was more than words, we ran directly at one of the most universally understood pain points in flight - the middle seat - and created a new medium for our uplifting message.

The Middle Seat Lottery is a first-of-its-kind innovation aimed at making every seat on our planes wonderful - even the ones in the middle.

It turned every middle seat on every Virgin Australia plane into a lottery ticket, with a chance to win unique prizes. Suddenly the middle seat was not just being jammed between two people, but an exciting game, played on a national level - finally giving people a reason to enjoy it, and changing the message that the middle seat sent to our flyers andthe world.

Our focus was on a leisure and business audience that were motivated by more than just a cheap ticket from A-B. Experiences were their true currency, small touches and improvements made a big impression. However they had become equal parts complacent and disillusioned with the static experience that was flight. In short - it was clear that up here in the sky - a little change would go a long way.

Our media plan started from the seat, out. So firstly we changed the booking system to highlight the middle seat and added seat back cards to every middle seat and onboard announcements on every single flight. And finally we used TV, OOH, in-app and eDM to tell the world that the middle seat was now wonderful.

Approach

Our approach extended through the line from cinema and TV to OOH, pre/post-flight eDMs, on-board announcements, seatback cards, automated customised app experience.

Implementation

Airlines are the most operationally complex environments within which to implement experience change. We worked closely with digital, operations, front line, airport, onboard and legal teams for 8 months to co-create a system to bring this to life. Every middle seat passenger on every domestic flight was engaged in the initiative onboard via audio announcements and seatback comms, with all eligible to enter through an automated, customised experience in-app.

Timeline

Experience Ideation & Prioritisation: Nov-Dec 2021

Scoping, Feasibility & Implementation Planning: Jan-Feb 2022

Digital Development, Operational Implementation, Education & Engagement: Feb-July 2022

Communications (internal & external) Production & Distribution: Mar-Oct 2022

Initiative launch: Oct 24 2022

Media channels and integration

Every middle Seat through seatback cards, announcements onboard and in-flight entertainment on every single flight nationally.

Supporting media:

Broadcast

Social

Digital

OOH

eDM

Scale

Largest experience initiative rollout ever undertaken at Virgin Australia.

Over $230,000 in prizes.

Please see confidential section for campaign results.

Most travellers view the middle seat as the worst on the plane. It's universally hated, and often shown in movies and television as the butt of many jokes about the flying experience. It's generally culturally understood to be an unavoidable, unchangeable part of the flying experience. We wanted to take action to make sure that every seat on our planes could be viewed as a wonderful, uplifting experience - our solution was to effectively turn every middle seat into a media channel that communicates the airline's intent to make every part of flying with Virgin wonderful. Even the middle seat.

Most travellers view the middle seat as the worst on the plane. It is universally hated, and is often shown in movies and television as the butt of many jokes about the flying experience. And it is generally culturally understood to be an unavoidable, unchangeable part of the flying experience. We wanted to take action to make sure that every seat on our planes could be viewed as a wonderful, uplifting experience - and our solution was to effectively turn each middle seat into a lottery ticket. In the process, we hoped to get more people to book the middle seat, but also to change the way they viewed it as part of the Virgin Australia flying experience.