The Challenge
Japan Airlines (JAL) set out to welcome more Southeast Asian travellers on its business-critical Japan- and US-bound routes without aggressive discounting that would reduce margins. But they were always more likely to default to their national carrier or ANA.
With five markets to reach and 67 destinations and multiple product offerings to promote, we needed to get the right persuasion in front of the right traveller at scale.
The Strategy
Our creative idea, “Fly once, fly always”, promised the positive surprise of first impressions every time one flies with JAL.
We hyper-personalised this through JAL’s first dynamic creative optimisation (DCO) strategy, creating dynamic rules with targeting parameters such as demographics, interests, location and intended destination.
This was aligned with functional and relevant proof points that positioned JAL as an airline worth paying a premium for.
The Solution
Our three-step solution, informed by data and enabled by technology:
1. Segment
We first sized and prioritised the most valuable segments for JAL to pursue in each market.
2. Target
We then identified JAL’s product differentiators that each segment would find most positively surprising, and showed how these could be experienced for the first and every subsequent time they are onboard.
More than 3,000 hyper-personalised creative assets were generated for permutations of segment, location, destination, product and price.
3. Deliver
These assets were served to the right people at the right point in their booking journey via dynamic creative optimisation (DCO).
We followed up on DCO with retargeting to nurture those who demonstrated intent, pushing them further down the purchase funnel.
The Results
It took just two months to exceed three-month booking targets, at a more efficient cost per acquisition (CPA) than before and while growing the brand.
The campaign yielded
9.2% more transactions from paid ads than the previous year, at 15% lower CPA than targeted
3x the clickthrough rate compared to the previous year where standard ads were run
Paid ads now accounting for 14% more online transactions than they did the year before
Up to 22% lift in brand recall, a strong indication that messages on JAL being worth a price premium made an impression