Fifteen of the best social media campaigns in travel... so far

NB: This is a guest article by Louise Woodward of PR and social media agency Umpf.

Following our Social Media Campaigns: Hall of Fame from 2010, Tnooz asked us to research some of the best travel-specific social media campaigns.

There is no specific order to the list. Campaigns have been chosen based on what Umpf felt was simply a clever or creative use of social media in the travel arena.

In deciding what is/is not a relevant as a social media case study, Umpf asked whether it involved either online social interaction, user participation or user-generated content.

1. Surprise, Surprise – KLM

At the end of 2010, KLM decided to give something a little extra special to its passengers waiting to board its flights – some personalised random acts of kindness.

Using information from Foursquare and Twitter, KLM identified passengers currently checked in and waiting to board KLM flights. A quick search of each person’s social media profile garnered info about their personal interests/reasons for flying.

Staff then purchased appropriate gifts which they gave to passengers prior to boarding their flight.

A happy, surprised customer = a tweeting customer. More than 40 people were presented with gifts and the campaign received 1m+ impressions on Twitter alone.

A clever – if time exhaustive – stunt that met its objectives of interacting with existing customers in the online space.

[Tnooz story: KLM spies on social media to give passengers a nice surprise]

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqHWAE8GDEk

2. Social Networking Mile High Club – Lufthansa Airlines

Thanks to Lufthansa Airlines’ branded social media app MySkyStatus, air travellers can update their social networks from the sky.

The app allows passengers flying with any airline to automatically post updates about their departure and arrival times, flight locations and even altitudes to their Facebook and Twitter followers while they’re airborne.

Updating your contacts with details about your every move may seem a little bit ‘look at me’, but top marks Lufthansa for keeping people connected in an environment where typically you have to turn off your phone.

Each update also links people back to the Lufthansa MySkyStatus page meaning that customers are effectively promoting the airline to followers for free during their flight.

Elsewhere, in 2010 Lufthansa also launched a virtual pilot game which was endorsed on Twitter by Stephen Fry; and it ran an Oktoberfest campaign with Foursquare which saw over 2,350 people unlock specialist Lufthansa badges.

[Tnooz story: A toy for those who get Twitter withdrawal on flights]

3. Le Bar Guide – Stella Artois

Though clearly not a travel company, Stella Artois has created a clever travel-related augmented reality app which creates meaningful content for users.

Download Stella's Le Bar Guide and, if you're holidaying or in an unfamiliar location, hold up your phone in the street, give it a shake and up pops markers showing the bars selling Stella, noting their distance away from you; hold it downwards and arrows pop up on the road pointing you in the direction of the nearest bar.

That’s not all – you can switch between different views, search for bars by country and postcode, rate the bars, add your own comments and even use it to order yourself a taxi home at the end of the night – genius.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTERI1s-UyA

4. A Map App for That – Vodafone

Simple but effective, Vodafone’s #ukhols campaign brought together Twitter and Google maps to plot the UK’s summer holiday destinations.

People were asked to tweet #ukhols followed by their age, sex, postcode and their holiday destination. The data was plotted on a live map showing who the tweet was by, their destination and the distance in miles from their postcode.

Adding an extra layer of interactivity, the map also synced with TwitPic meaning, once on holiday, people could post photos to TwitPic which would then appear on the map.

5. Where the Gnomes Roam – Travelocity

Travelocity’s 'brand advocate', the Roaming Gnome, has been successfully dabbling in social media for a few years. With his own blog and presence on MySpace, Twitter and Facebook, most recently he embraced the world of Chatroulette in a bid to drag potential customers away from their webcams and go on holiday.

That’s not all, timed to coincide with the launch of Virgin Atlantic’s first seasonal flight from Chicago to London, the Roaming Gnome used Foursquare to update followers about its location on a recent trip to London.

Fans of the cheeky chappy were able to follow him checking in to various locations as he explored the city. Photos of him on-board the Virgin flight were also uploaded to his Facebook page.

[Tnooz story: Travelocity trying every conceivable channel as Roaming Gnome hits Chatroulette]

6. Chocks Away – Gol Airlines

An innovative banner ad from Brazil’s Gol Airlines gave people the chance to ‘fly’ using their mobile phones.

Travellers were asked to input their mobile number into a banner ad and were then called back with flight instructions as the web page transformed into a flying game.

The plane was controlled using the mobile and could be navigated over the airline’s website, with a few special features thrown in. The purpose of the initiative? To remind customers that flying is easier when you check in using your mobile. Pretty clever.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuDI412KkMo

7. Klout And About (Part I)

The Las Vegas Palm Hotel has created a "Klout Klub" which will allow high ranking guests access to its amenities in the hope that they share their experiences with their followers.

The hotel is already referring to Klout (a social-analytics firm) as part of its reservation process so if you want an upgrade – get social networking.

[Tnooz story: Social media influence may bring travel perks]

8. Klout And About (Part II)

A second Klout example comes from Virgin America which worked with Klout to offer top "Twitter influencers" one free, round-trip flight from Los Angeles or San Francisco to Toronto.

In order to qualify, users had to create a Klout account and link it to their Twitter profile.

Those with the most influential Klout score (which is based on a number of factors including number of Twitter followers, how often their updates were being retweeted, etc) were offered free return flights.

A pretty simple and straightforward campaign which secured plenty of media and online coverage and talkability.

[Tnooz story: Virgin America partners with Klout to influence social media influencers]

9. Powder Dash – Japan Tourism

Encouraging people to consider Japan as a ski/snowboard destination, Japan Tourism launched a Facebook game called Powder Dash.

Allowing players to experience the ‘powder’ that Japan has to offer, the game saw players race down mountains, hit jumps, do tricks, in a bid to score high points and unlock advanced snowboards. Users could also challenge friends.

10. Buzztastic – STA Travel

STA Travel is a company often cited as an example of good practice in the world of social media within the travel industry.

Its STA Travel Buzz site was created as a central resource for company and customer-generated content. STA Travel’s team regularly identifies and outreaches to travellers through social media to help create meaningful and targeted content for the site.

Known as ‘voices’ or 'STA Explorers', they are encouraged to contribute copy, images, and videos about their travel experiences and other relevant travel-themed content.

The result is a meaningful travel site with fresh, interesting content created by genuine brand advocates.

11. Pig-a-Pult – Manchester Airport

Social media savvy Manchester Airport created this Facebook game to promote the wide range of destinations it serves across the world.

Players catapult Piggles to one of the airport’s destinations in a bid to gain a place on the leader board (you're scored only if you land near the destination you aimed for).

At the end of the campaign, the player which catapulted Piggles the furthest was rewarded with an iPad; holiday vouchers were given randomly to other players.

12. Twitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Twitchhiker

If there’s one travel campaign that demonstrates the power of Twitter, this surely has to be it.

Twitchhiker was started by a guy called Paul Smith who set out on a mission to travel as far from home as possible in 30 days, relying only on the good will of fellow tweeters.

The rules were simple:

he could only accept offers of travel and accommodation directly from people following @twitchhiker
he couldn’t make plans any further than three days in advance
he could only spend money on food and drink and anything that would fit into his suitcase
if he had two accommodation options on the table, the choice of which to take was his; if he only had one option then he had to accept it and move on within 48 hours regardless
no options on the table within 48 hours meant he had to go home – challenge over

Paul’s adventures are profiled on his blog and there’s now a book of his story: Twitchhiker – How One Man Travelled the World By Twitter.

[Tnooz story: Man who used Twitter to travel the world goes Old School, writes a book]

13. Ding Dong Merrily in the Sky – Spanair

Christmas is most definitely the season of goodwill with this second example of an airline bringing some festive cheer with random acts of kindness.

On Christmas Eve the Spanish airline Spanair decided to surprise all of the passengers on its Barcelona to Las Palmas flight with a Christmas present. Gifts were wrapped and labelled with each passenger’s name.

They were then put on to the luggage conveyor belt for passengers to collect with their reactions filmed and uploaded to YouTube. To date the Spanish version of the clip has received over 320,000 views and the English version a further 285,000.

[Tnooz story: Spanair spreads joy at Christmas, gets YouTube love in the New Year]

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW5Xo4QrSBw

14. Drive Time – Avis

Avis was the first major car rental company to introduce a blog; it has since won several customer service accolades.

In 2007, WeTryHarder was launched as a place for customers and staff to talk about positive and negative experiences of car rental – since then, the Avis Net Approval rating has increased by 200%.

It has also now launched a customer loyalty scheme using Foursquare and Facebook Places. Working with Topguest, the scheme rewards customers when they check in to partner organisations, as well as receiving money-off codes when they check into Avis locations.

15. Jump To The Beat – Hotelsbycity.net

An online campaign launched by HotelsByCity.net became an internet craze, picked up by the mainstream media.

If you're not already doing it, bed jumping is apparently the must-do in-room hotel activity. The premise is simple – go to a hotel; have someone take your picture as you jump mid-air onto the bed; post it to the website titled BedJump.

Some hotels even took it a step further, holding events and special offers to promote the craze. InterContinental Hotels attempted to break the world record for bed jumping.

Meanwhile, an aerobics team who travelled to the national Australian Championships claimed: "We used bed jumping as part of our pre-competition preparation - and also as part of the celebrations after we won!"