Once again agencies show that when it comes to buying media, it’s not what you’ve got – it’s how you use it. PHD US is one of Adweek’s 2019 Media Plan of the Year winners.
Delta Air Lines scooped the accolade in the Best Use of Out-of-Home Media ($500k+) category for ‘Sweatlag’.
Campaign in brief:
Whether it’s an espresso or a hair of the dog, everyone has their own remedy to fight jet lag. Delta Air Lines, supported by research, thinks the solution is to sweat. That’s why it partnered with the luxury gym Equinox to generate interest in the new A350, which was designed with specific lights and wider windows to combat jet lag.
Knowing that exercise is key to resetting circadian rhythm, the partnership tailored a fitness programme available at three LA Equinox locations, free for guests who signed up online and brought their Delta boarding pass to the gym.
To help promote the campaign, digital billboards outside of LAX were scheduled alongside the live flight data of Delta’s most popular cross-country and international flights.
As travellers left the airport, they’d pass a billboard that stated, “Just landed on flight DL8508? Sweat the Paris out.”
“It was a brilliant moment to leverage the technology and specifically target and match incoming flights as they were landing,” says Beatrix Bang, global communications planning director at PHD Worldwide, Delta’s media agency. “The billboards were vital,” says Bang, as Los Angelenos spend “a hell of a lot of time in cars.”
According to Delta, more than 200 people attended the workouts throughout the four-week series, and media running on Facebook and Instagram generated a 30% increase in ad recall. Awareness in LA increased by 6%.
“Los Angeles is a city of fitness fanatics,” notes Bang. “We didn’t have to work too hard to make fitness feel interesting.”
