Malaysian Media Awards Winners Showcase





2015 | |

AirAsia 200,000 New Reasons to Fly!

Advertiser: AirAsia
Brand: AirAsia
Creative Agency: -
Credits: -

The Challenge
It’s public knowledge that AirAsia pioneered and dominated online ticket booking in Malaysia. But, like everything innovative and new, this model soon caught on with AirAsia’s competitors who have resorted to online discounts and promotions to break its domination. AirAsia needed to exert its dominance. This is how we did it.

Insight, Strategy and the Idea
Deep diving into the consumer’s behavior, we realized that there was still a large section of travelers who still planned and booked their trips via conventional travel agents or through the industry’s annual travel fair–MATTA Fair (187,055 visitors in 2013). We could have opted to partake in the MATTA Fair, but:
1. Because travel agencies were present there, we didn’t want to create a sense of competition with our allies;
2. It defeats the purpose to be present in yet another cluttered environment (a total of 1033 booths were set up at the March Matta fair in 2014). Observations into customer behavior indicate people like a “one-stop shop” atmosphere. While MATTA Fair provide this, it was broken up by different players. We wanted to market all AirAsia’s products in one place – from tickets to hotels. We saw our opportunity: Since the digital migration, no airline had an exclusive presence in a physical location to satisfy the needs mentioned above. We identified our platform: Malaysia’s very first airline-exclusive travel fair!
Idea: The AirAsia Travel Fair 2014 (AATF) — an exclusive industry FIRST. The exclusivity strengthened AirAsia’s relationships with travel partners while winning over in offline sales channels.

Media Execution
AATF is a “one-stop shop” with over 20 booths by various tourism bodies and AirAsia partners. The event was held at Paradigm Mall giving 20% discount on flights. Travel partners are able to talk & seal deals with consumers face-to- face. This large section of travelers covered with the AATF further positioned AirAsia as the dominant player in the market. To gather massive attendance, agency brokered a partnership with Media Prima TV & radio platforms to cover the event live on popular talk shows and news programs including One FM and Hot FM. Celebrities and key opinion leaders in travel likewise promoted AATF to their “flock”. They were on-ground to provide instant entertainment and meet & greet. Other means to promote AATF were major dailies and OOH within the mall prior to the event. AirAsia’s internal assets (EDMs, LCD screens and the Allstar Blast), were like used to dominate spaces where our most valuable consumers are.

Results and Effectiveness
This campaign did extremely well despite it being a first time venture for AirAsia. This is how our display of dominance worked: Over 200,000 people visited AATF— that’s 300% more than the 50,000 goal. AATF sales contributed about 10% incremental to overall sales. AATF helped partners & AirAsia Group by increasing revenue to RM 10.42 million — 50% more against usual period. Total earned media estimated at RM 1.05 million. As a result, AATF increased Paradigm Mall’s footfall by 48% on Friday, and 20% over weekend.