This paper examines WestJet's 2013 "Christmas Miracle" campaign where they surprised 250 passengers on two flights from Toronto to Calgary with personalized gifts waiting for them at baggage claim. The campaign video went viral with over 45 million views. It helped increase WestJet's brand awareness and sales significantly. The campaign aligned with WestJet's goals of personalization and feel-good initiatives. It demonstrated how emotional branding can produce results far exceeding expectations through free advertising on a relatively small budget.

1. Running Head: WESTJET’S CHRISTMAS MIRACLE CAMPAIGN 1
An Examination of WestJet’s 2013 Christmas Miracle Campaign
Grace Craft
High Point University

2. WESTJET’S CHRISTMAS MIRACLE CAMPAIGN 2
Abstract
This paper examines and explores the campaign that WestJet orchestrated in November
and December of 2013, known as the “Christmas Miracle” campaign. Many articles from the
Internet were utilized while researching and analyzing the campaign in which 250 WestJet
passengers were surprised with personalized gifts on the baggage claim at their destination. This
paper looks at the background of the Canadian airline, explains the how the whole campaign was
executed, and discusses the effectiveness of the campaign for its target audience. Then, it
discusses statistics of the campaign video’s media presence, the results of the campaign, and how
it impacted the company and people’s views of it. The goals, objectives, strategies and tactics of
the campaign along with the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to WestJet were
also explained. Lastly, the paper examines theories that relate to the 2013 Christmas Miracle
campaign.

3. WESTJET’S CHRISTMAS MIRACLE CAMPAIGN 3
Christmastime is the most wonderful time of the year, right? Although Christmas season
is a joyful time filled with love, gifts, cozy scarves, hot cocoa and family for most, airports
during the holidays do not reflect this picture-perfect ideal. The time from late November to
around Christmas and New Year’s is when airports are bustling with people; in fact, AAA
estimated that nearly 93 million people travel during this holiday period and the traveling spikes
up by 23 percent compared to the rest of the year (Ramon, J., n.d.). An airline called WestJet
wanted to brighten some of their passengers’ stressful holiday travels, so in November 2013,
WestJet organized and executed a “Christmas Miracle” campaign. This campaign surprised 250
passengers with personalized gifts waiting for them at their destination- gifts that they had
wished for just hours before. The Christmas Miracle campaign that WestJet conducted was a
booming success and was extremely effective for the company in a public relations standpoint.
A bit of background information on WestJet is needed to fully understand the campaign
they had in November and December of 2013. WestJet Airlines is the second largest Canadian
airline that is a low-cost alternative to the country’s competing major airlines. According to their
official website, WestJet was founded in 1996 by a man named Clive Beddoe and a team of like-
minded partners. They believed that just because you pay less for your flights does not mean that
you should get less. They began with three aircrafts, five destinations, and 220 friendly
WestJetters, and they have grown into a company with 88 destinations with 9,700 passionate
WestJetters flying in next-generation aircrafts. They are dedicated to providing an outstanding
guest experience and they want to enrich every guest’s life in some way. WestJet has claimed a
top spot in Canada’s 10 Most Admired Corporate Cultures for four years and was inducted into
its Hall of Fame in 2010. The company ranked third in Aon Hewitt’s best employers in Canada
and was chosen as the Canadian airline with the best flight attendants by flightnetwork.com
(About Us, n.d.).
In August of 2013, the public relations team at WestJet with the help of agency Studio M
began to brainstorm what “giving” looked like at its best (Chung, M., 2014). They knew they
wanted to do something regarding giving for the holiday season, and they wanted whatever they
did to be big, fresh, and exciting. The Canadian airline, with the help of a virtual and tech-savvy
Santa Claus, learned what passengers at the Toronto and Hamilton International Airports- who
were waiting to board flights to Calgary- had on their Christmas lists. The virtual Santa Claus
appeared on life-size screens at boarding gates and somehow even knew the passenger’s names!

4. WESTJET’S CHRISTMAS MIRACLE CAMPAIGN 4
While he asked passengers what they would like for Christmas, WestJetters took notes behind
the scenes. Once the two flights were in the air, 175 WestJet volunteers in Calgary, where the
flights were headed, made a mad dash to the stores to pick up what everyone had wished for.
Passengers wished for everything from socks and underwear to flat-screen televisions. The
volunteers drove to stores all over the city, bought 250 gifts, wrapped them nicely and
personalized them with names of the passengers, all within a couple of hours. The flights to
Calgary were about 2 hours long. Upon arrival, instead of the baggage carousel being filled with
suitcases and duffle bags, the gift boxes made their grand entrance. The whole area was fit for
the occasion with hot cocoa, giant gingerbread men and even fake snow. Laughter, tears, and
shouts of excitement filled the air. The whole operation was captured on camera and was
produced into a five-minute video that WestJet released on December 9th, 2013 (Bender, A.,
2013). Throughout this campaign, WestJet’s nonprofit partner was Ronald McDonald House
Charities. WestJet pledged to donate flights to a family in need via Ronald McDonald House
Charities once the video hit 200,000 shares (WestJet Christmas Miracle, 2013).
WestJet’s Christmas Miracle campaign’s main target audience is women in Canada ages
25-54. Women are targeted because women are typically more emotional than men and are more
moved by videos such as this one. The heartwarming, feel-good campaign video showed the true
and vulnerable emotions of passengers both young and old while receiving their gifts, and this
resonates more with women than it does with men. While scrolling through comments on the
YouTube video, I discovered that many women said things such as “This really touched my
heart,” “So sweet,” and “Watching with tears of joy in my eyes.” Another woman replied to the
latter comment, saying, “Me too, I don’t know why!” Yet another comment by a woman says, “I
am at the office and the clip nearly welled up my eyes. Thanks WestJet. Miracles do happen.”
All of these remarks made my women reiterate that WestJet has succeeded in reaching its target
audience. The reason that the age range of the target audience is 25-54 is because they are of
working age and many women fly for business. These women may also fly for leisure alone or
with families because they have the financial means to do so, while still trying to be a bit
conservative of their money since WestJet is a low-cost option compared to other competitors.
Over 65 percent of WestJet bookings are made by women since women typically are the main
ones to plan and organize trips for their families (Target Market/Advertising, 2014).

5. WESTJET’S CHRISTMAS MIRACLE CAMPAIGN 5
The Christmas Miracle Campaign that WestJet conducted far exceeded their own
expectations, as the campaign video went viral- it had 13 million views and had been seen in
more than 200 countries just a few days after it was uploaded to YouTube (Bender, A., 2013).
Today, the video has over 45 million views. Mike Mills from Studio M, the agency that produces
WestJet’s advertisements, said, “When we put out the first video, everyone said it’s five and a
half minutes- it’s too long, no one will ever watch it.” Those people were soon proved wrong.
Mills says that longer stories allow for a deeper connection, and he was right (Wright, L., 2015).
Richard Bartrem, WestJet’s vice president of communications and community relations, said that
the company had expected perhaps just 800,000 views from the video. The video also made the
news in the U.K., Australia, Japan, Poland, and Malaysia. Bartrem says that the video produced
something that advertising cannot buy, for a cost that he says is “nowhere near as much as you
would have expected.” He also says, “For a traditional commercial, you could spend well into
the mid-six figures for the production alone.” Although WestJet will not disclose how much they
spent on the campaign, Bartrem calls it a “mere fraction” of that (Bender, A., 2013). The
campaign video was one of the most watched viral ads of 2013 worldwide, exceeding its view
goal of 500k by more than 7,000 percent. It received 212,000 likes on YouTube, over 200,000
shares, 26,800 favorites, and 29,000+ comments. New subscribers to WestJet’s YouTube page
increased 11,000 percent, and media impressions worldwide reaches 328 million from 1,600+
media stories exceeding the goal of 26 million by 1,200 percent. Perhaps the most important
statistic is this: WestJet’s sales increased 86 percent compared to the same period the previous
year (Langlois, B., 2014).
WestJet had goals and objectives for their Christmas Miracle campaign. Their main goal
was to increase their global brand awareness, thus, increase sales and loyal customers. Another
goal was to make the campaign personal and make people feel heard. An objective that they had,
as previously mentioned, was to get 500,000 views on their YouTube video and also to receive
200,000 shares. WestJet did not have a revenue objective; they just wanted the campaign to be
all about brand building. WestJet also had strategies and tactics regarding the way they were
planning to execute this campaign- the “how”. Their strategy was surprising passengers with
gifts at their destination. They had many tactics when working on this campaign, some being
surprising 250 passengers on two different flights with the same destination, using a recognizable
Christmas song in the background of their video, sending out 175 “Christmas elves” and

6. WESTJET’S CHRISTMAS MIRACLE CAMPAIGN 6
capturing emotion of the passengers to make the video heartwarming. Mike Mills says, “It really
is trying to tell a story that people will connect with so that when people see that brand, and later
are making a purchasing choice, it leaves them with a positive feeling about that brand” (Wright,
L. 2015).
Doing a SWOT analysis of companies is very important. In WestJet’s case, its strengths
are that they have the lowest airfare costs in Canada which gives them a competitive advantage,
they have outstanding customer service and guest experience, they are a trusted airline, and it
retains a younger, fresher image because of its involvement in social media and its wildly
successful feel-good initiatives like the Christmas Miracles campaign. Its weaknesses include
that its cost is rising slowly, thus narrowing the cost gap with Air Canada, they do not have first
class or business class cabins, which might deter some people from flying with WestJet, and they
have a lack of many trans-continental flights. Opportunities for the company include strategic
alliances with other airlines such as American Airlines, travel to more destinations, and leverage
the vacation-planning site called WestJet Vacations. Threats to WestJet include increasing cost
of fuel may make it difficult to keep fares low, maintaining a positive image due to some
negative reactions to their Christmas Miracles campaign along with other past campaigns and
Air Canada’s prices being too close.
Some theories that apply to this campaign are first, the agenda setting theory. The
WestJet campaign did not tell the audience what to think, but they told them what to think about
through showcasing their kindness in their campaign video. Another theory that applies is the
uses and gratifications theory. People may have searched for the campaign because they heard it
was a heartwarming video, thus satisfying their affective needs. Overall, this campaign was
extremely successful and can serve as a model for other companies as they brainstorm campaign
ideas for the future.

7. WESTJET’S CHRISTMAS MIRACLE CAMPAIGN 7
References
About Us. (n.d.). Retrieved September 29, 2016, from https://www.westjet.com/en-ca/about-
us/index
Bender, A. (2013, December 12). The Real 'Christmas Miracle' Of WestJet's Viral Video:
Millions In Free Advertising. Retrieved September 29, 2016, from
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewbender/2013/12/12/the-real-christmas-miracle-of-
westjets-viral-video-millions-in-free-advertising/#3e8ae5fc1e04
Chung, M. (2014, October 08). Brands of the Year: WestJet reaches new heights. Retrieved
September 29, 2016, from http://strategyonline.ca/2014/10/08/brands-of-the-year-westjet-
reaches-new-heights/
Langlois, B. (2014, December 10). How WestJet is Winning with Branded Content - Catalyst.
Retrieved September 29, 2016, from http://catalyst.ca/blog/westjet-christmas-miracle-
2014-branded-content-win/
Ramon, J. (n.d.). What Is the Busiest Travel Day? Retrieved September 29, 2016, from
http://traveltips.usatoday.com/busiest-travel-day-108182.html
Target Market/Advertising. (2014, February 7). Retrieved September 29, 2016, from
http://ejlongmire.weebly.com/blog/target-marketadvertising
WestJet Christmas Miracle. (2013, December 18). Retrieved September 29, 2016, from
http://causeupdate.com/blog/westjet-christmas-miracle
Wright, L. (2015, December 16). From tears to profit: How brands manipulate your emotions to
increase holiday sales. Retrieved September 29, 2016, from
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/online-holiday-marketing-1.3355669