Top 10 Crowdsourcing Initiatives by Airlines

Featuring: Top 10 Crowdsourcing initiatives by Airlines and Airports.Helping airlines & airports engage travelers profitably http://www.SimpliFlying.com http://www.SimpliFlying.com

Case-study 1Finnair + Helsinki Airport: “Quality Hunters”

It all started in September 2010……when Finnair launched a campaign to hire 4“quality hunters”. The original job offer read: “The Quality Hunters mission will be to travel to cities in Europe, Asia and the US throughout October and November, assessing flights, airports and destinations. As independent advisors to Finnair, they are expected to communicate their impartial views and recommendations to the company on a regular basis throughout the two- month period. In addition, the Quality Hunters will share their thoughts and adventures with the public through personal blogs.” www.SimpliFlying.com

… and expanded in 2011The original campaign received more than 5200 job applications and generated aconsiderable amount of positive exposure for the company, both online andoffline, with the website being visited by more than 10.000 people on the busiest days. In 2011 the campaign was re- launched, but this time in partnership with Helsinki Airport and searching for 8 quality hunters. Each specialized in a different “field” of quality, from socializing to business class services. www.SimpliFlying.com

Invited other users to share ideas too!This time however the program also included several “additional” social mediabased tools to allow other users to suggest and discuss new ideas. The idea meter was a particularly successful tool as it allowed on-site discussions as well as Facebook and Twitter discussions, with dedicated Twitter hashtags for each idea. www.SimpliFlying.com

Quality brand focusThe greatest achievement of the strategy behind the quality hunters campaignhowever is perhaps a less obvious one…By creating this crowdsourcing challenge both Finnair and Helsinki Airport havecreated a strong association between their brand and the concept of quality.This was achieved mostly through the media coverage of the challenge and the buzzthat it generated on the social web. www.SimpliFlying.com

Case-study 2Lufthansa: “Cargo Innovation”

Going green!In November 2011 Lufthansa Cargo launched a competition aimed at improving itsoperations in two key areas: Green Solutions: aimed at reducing the company’s environmental footprint Add-on Services: aimed at identifying additional services that could improve the company’s portfolio or streamline its current operations www.SimpliFlying.com

Social innovation!The initiative has recently achieved the100 submissions mark, and is constantlygrowing.Once posted, the ideas can be browsedtrough a tag cloud on the competition’swebsite and discussed using either adedicated twitter account, a dedicatedfacebook tab, or the website itself. www.SimpliFlying.com

A noble initiative generates considerable buzz!The contest is scheduled to endin mid December 2011, with thewinners being announced inFebruary 2012.So far the initiative has proven tobe very successful, generating aconsiderable amount of buzz.This achievement is even moreremarkable if the lower lever of“glamour” associated with aircargo is taken into account. www.SimpliFlying.com

Case-study 3KLM: “Bright Ideas”

A very social company goes crowdsourcingRecently, KLM launched a new Facebook tab, dedicated to crowdsourcingideas to improve their products and services, where it invited its Facebookfollowers to share their ideas and discuss them freely. www.SimpliFlying.com

Facebook focusBy concentrating its crowdsourcing efforts on its Facebookpage the airline was able to appeal directly to its existing userbase. This also empowered its fans to share and discuss theideas amongst themselves while at the same time generatinglarge amounts of social buzz and exposing the users to otherfeatures of the Facebook page. www.SimpliFlying.com

The results start to showThe program is still relatively new but some of the feedback and ideas obtainedfrom it are starting to be implemented with very positive results. www.SimpliFlying.com

Case-study 4Estonian Air: “My Estonian Air”

A renewed vision at the top!The arrival of a new CEO at Estonian Air has brought a wealth of new ideas andinnovative management techniques to the airline.One of the most remarkable changes has been the launch of a crowdsourcingcampaign to: “..firstly, to get ideas from people and see what they think and expect from us. Secondly, it gives us a perfect opportunity to explain why certain things are done in certain way and also sell our service” [Tero Taskila, CEO, Estonian Air] www.SimpliFlying.com

My Estonian AirRight from its very start the crowdsourcing campaign invited users to get involvedand, most importantly, to take ownership of the airline, helping shape its future. The initial reaction was overwhelming with over 300 responses on the day the website opened. Furthermore the concept proved so successful that the airline, after implementing some of the proposed solutions, was nominated for several industry awards for its outstanding initiatives and product offerings. www.SimpliFlying.com

Actually implementing the ideas!Building on the recommendations and ideasput forward by its customers the airline wasable to considerably improve its serviceoffering. One of its most popular initiativeshas been the “gourmet flights” wherepassengers are offered a special in-flightmeal designed and presented by local chefs. www.SimpliFlying.com

Case-study 5Air France: “Design competition”

Pioneering the crowdsourcing wave!The Air France design contest of 2009 as well as being one of the first and finestexamples of airline crowdsourcing was also one of the first to pre-select participantsby only accepting applications from: “students and youngpeople who graduated less than 3 years ago from design schools, graphic arts schools, industrial design schools, fine arts schools in France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy and the United Kingdom” www.SimpliFlying.com

Ensuring quality resultsBy limiting its pool of candidates to selected groups of culturally relevant andappropriately trained young professionals, the company was able to receive a largeamount of high-quality submissions that ultimately led to some extraordinary results. www.SimpliFlying.com

Strategic marketing backgroundFrom a marketing point of view however, the most important aspect of thecompetition was the subtle association it created between the concept of high-quality design and the airline itself. This core association was further exploited by the airline in its advertisements that often featured design, fashion and quality related themes. www.SimpliFlying.com

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Case-study 6WestJet: “Cutting costs with employee innovation”

Ask your employeesIt is often said that a company’s employees are its most valuable asset since theyare the ones closest to the end customers and the day to day operations. Knowing this, WestJet’s management decided to run a crowd sourcing exercise, asking their employees for ideas on how to reduce costs and help the company trough the though economic situation. www.SimpliFlying.com

Handling the responseSoon after announcing the new crowdsourcing strategy the company run into sometrouble. As one of WestJet’s senior business analysts put it : “We were inundated with ideas, to where we just couldnt handle them administratively” The response had been so enthusiastic that over 450 employees registered to help within a few days of the original announcement. www.SimpliFlying.com

Enlisting the help of prosIn order to cope with the overwhelming response the airline enlisted the help ofSpigit, a company specialized in crowdsourcing solutions. With the help of Spigitthe number of employees taking part in the program rose to over 2000, and theresults could be processed in an orderly fashion. The results were soon evident, and according to some estimates were responsible for over 10 million dollars in savings www.SimpliFlying.com

Case-study 7American Airlines: “Stay connected”

Outsourcing CreativityAmerican Airlines recently completed an investment program to include newfeatures to its service offering. Amongst these features are new mobile phoneapps, in flight Wi-Fi, live video-streaming and power ports. In line with itsinnovative offer it also decided to crowdsource the creativity for its marketingcampaign launching the Stay Connected challenge. www.SimpliFlying.com

Guaranteed purchaseThe crowdsourcingcampaign was designedin co-operation withcrowdsourcing websitepoptent.netThe company asked thewebsite’s users toproduce a 90-secondvideo illustrating thebenefits of the newfeatures and promisedto purchase the bestvideo for $ 7500. www.SimpliFlying.com

Impressive response ratesThe contest has not ended yet, however it appears to have been very successfulsince the challenge has been accepted by over 550 users. www.SimpliFlying.com

Case-study 8Ryanair: “Ancillary revenue competition”

What should we charge you for today?When it comes to findingadditional revenue sourcesEuropean low cost carrierRyanair is certainly one ofthe most proactive (andprovocative) airlinesaround. However, it seemsthat even they had someproblems finding new“revenue streams”. www.SimpliFlying.com

The crowd has a sense of humourThe company ran a crowdsourcing contest where it asked people to submit ideas fornew extra fees, promising 1000 Euros to the winner. The response from the crowdwas exceptional and often included a good deal of humour. These are some of the best proposals received by the company: •Charging for toilet paper – with O’Leary’s face on it, •Charging €2.50 to read the safety cards, •Charging €50 for bikini clad Cabin Crew. www.SimpliFlying.com

Two years later people are still worried…The contest turned out to be an excellent marketing tool for the company,reinforcing its image of a low cost company willing to do anything to lower itsfares. The legacy of the contest also had a surprisingly long lasting effectgenerating a considerable amount of buzz and urban legends still circulating aboutthe possible implementation of some of these measures. www.SimpliFlying.com

Case-study 9SAS: “New summer routes”

Summer routesIf you are an airline manager and have successfully identified 21 out of the 22summer destinations you were asked to find, but cannot decide on the 22nd do you: a) Start looking immediately for an expensive market analyst? b) Ask a magic mirror? c) Go on Facebook and ask your customer where would they like to fly ? (Hint: Magic mirrors do not exist) www.SimpliFlying.com

Sommerflyet 2012Being a very social airline with more than 110,000 followers, SAS decided to go foroption C and launched a campaign called “Sommerflyet 2012’ to let its followersdecide one of its 22 summer routes. www.SimpliFlying.com

A clear winnerThe company asked its followers to submit a destination that was within 5 hours’flight-time from its Oslo hub and then included the top 10 suggestions into a poll thatwas posted on its Facebook page.This well planned approach proved very effective and provided both brand exposure,social interaction with the community and efficient business intelligence. The Turkish town of Alanya emerged as a clear winner and will become one of the 22 summer destinations for the summer 2012 season. www.SimpliFlying.com

Case-study 10BA: “Menu design & great Britons program”

Crowdsourcing to support homegrown talentsAs part of its efforts tosupport British borntalent ahead of the 2012Olympics, British Airwayslaunched a program tosearch for 3 candidates:a chef, a scriptwriter andan artist. www.SimpliFlying.com

An Olympic taskEach of the three candidates will have theopportunity to develop his/her talent with thehelp of a British celebrity.At the end of the program the winners and theirmentors will develop an aircraft livery, an on-board menu and an in-flight movie that will befeatured on British Airways’ aircraft during therun up to the 2012 Olympic games . www.SimpliFlying.com

A win-win solutionThe four winners will be able to showcase their talent with the help of their mentors,and be awarded free flights on BA to help with their career development. The airlinein return will be able to strengthen its association with Britain, and its role as theleading UK carrier. www.SimpliFlying.com

For more case-studies:www.SimpliFlying.com Helping airlines & airports engage travelers profitably http://www.SimpliFlying.com www.SimpliFlying.com

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Top 10 Crowdsourcing Initiatives by Airlines

by SimpliFlying on Dec 14, 2011

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