Malaysian Media Awards Winners Showcase

Challenge
Upon launching its first long haul flight to London, AirAsia X needed to bring the 2 countries closer to each other. Search was challenged to be the key media in creating long-term awareness and fill seats from both destinations. With the global financial crisis, ‘travel’ seems far from people’s minds.
Solution
Insights showed that despite the economic downturn, people still needed to unwind, and by acknowledging Malaysia as a gateway for the rest of Asia, our communication platform was built. 
These circumstances pointed us to identify keyword groups beyond branded ones that worked towards using the poor economical situation to the brand’s advantage. Creating ads that inspire, and analyzing the competition and seasonality periods to ensure ads stood out and remained highly relevant.
Execution
Combining branded keywords with Asian destinations and having presence when users searched for AirAsia’s competitors proved instrumental in garnering leads. Clicks were filtered through three layers to ensure qualified traffic. We aimed for value positions that brought the best ROI by having outstanding copy and an evaluation process of quality score for every keyword. More than 130 ad variations were deployed and daily tested to cater to seasonality factors such as Easter and other public holidays.
Result
For every US$1 spend, AirAsia X received US$165 in revenue. The results went beyond expectations as we tabulated the numbers from Google and DoubleClick which reported 15,699% return-on-investment! 
In less than 5 months the campaign received 113,201 qualified clicks. Over 9 million impressions and the highest recorded CTR of 19.13%.