The Brief

Air New Zealand was struggling to get Japanese to visit New Zealand, especially to young audience. Also having a task to strengthen the online airline ticket sales, targeting young people was essential. This campaign “’Leave It to Us’ Request System” linked the target, directly to Air New Zealand, concerning the habit and the culture of Japan and Japanese. Utilizing their “daily” tool and touch points, we focused on direct one on one communication; boss and the employee, Air New Zealand and each audience, which will eventually expand inside SNS. Also lead to e-commerce site where you can directly buy your tickets to New Zealand online.

Creative Execution

"Leave It to Us Request System," a simple and innovative request system that creates a leave application form customized to generate the most effective and positive response, was made. In the microsite, the audience will choose their boss amongst their Facebook friends. Then simply check the date, where in New Zealand they want to go, and most importantly, match them to their boss’s personality. From more than 2000 patterns, the system automatically generates and creates the most persuasive content just for their boss, with the essence of Air New Zealand. Once submitted via Facebook messenger, the application was then automatically shared with friends and colleagues increasing the persuasion and creating even more leave applications. The campaign implementation was one month in September, considering the best vacation season in New Zealand. This unique system appealed especially to shy young Japanese business-persons, long given up the hope of taking a vacation.

Describe the creative solution to the brief/objective.

Our target audience was Japanese business people, who have wills to purchase airline ticket, online. Famous for hard-working, they hardly take a vacation, worst acquisition rate for 6 years to 2013. (Vacation Deprivation® study by Expedia) The leave request form is the first problem. Then you need to humbly persuade your boss at work, very difficult for shy Japanese. To truly grab the heart of the audience, Air New Zealand focused on solving the problem that Japanese have, “to take a vacation.” Here, we not only focused on the employee but changing bosses conventional perception was also important.

Results

In one month term, the microsite scored 11,000 Likes. Thousands of requests overflowed online, increasing persuasion and generating even more leave applications. Normally reluctant bosses approved the vacation request with joy; through their off duty touch point, SNS. Employees also had the chance to be reminded in taking vacations, through their friend’s posts on their own SNS timeline. And in 2014, Japan scored its best leave rate in over 6 years. (2014 Vacation Deprivation® study by Expedia) The idea, raised awareness of Air New Zealand, also conveying the profile and depth of the country itself. The image lead to great increase on airline ticket sales, 165% vs the KPI and 254% vs same time previous year.