The Islanders' Airline
How do you ensure one of the islands’ leading brands remains big and popular with islanders?
How do you market an airline to a UK market with a fraction of the budget of its competitors and to a market with very limited exposure to the brand?
If there's one thing developing local brand heroes tells you, it is that islanders love all things local. However, you need to earn that place at the heart of island life.
An irreverent yet professional tone was required when marketing off-island destinations to locals and this helped them warm to what we successfully branded 'the islanders' airline'.
The mirror image of this, of course, was marketing Guernsey to off-island customers. This required well informed and highly polished campaigns, aimed to better other desirable airlines and holiday destinations, created using local knowledge of what customers want from a holiday destination.
Which? Airline
Aurigny was awarded third place two years running in the prestigious Which? Best Short-Haul Airline category. This was an achievement that needed shouting about and formed the backbone of our advertising for the airline.
I was tasked with creating a diverse range of digital campaigns promoting the airline's services, along with many leaflets, booklets and other printed material, polishing an already loved brand and pushing it further into the public consciousness.
In The Crosshairs
LRD's sophisticated digital strategy paid significant dividends for Aurigny.
Here I worked alongside our marketing team, developing and branding smart online prospecting techniques that enabled us to track down people who have similar behaviours to those already booking with Aurigny. Using Google insights, we determined seasonal consumer buying behaviour in the short-haul destination travel categories.
Our socio-demographic and Target Group Index media profiling helped match Guernsey with a broadcast medium delivering big audience exposure. So, in partnership with The Telegraph newspaper (offline and digital formats) Aurigny was placed before an audience of 2.3 million daily.
Looking Sharp
Working closely with the client, I was lucky enough to have the pleasure of re-designing the livery for their new fleet of planes.
These included two Dornier 228-202K's an ATR 42-500 and a brand new, off the shelf, ATR 72-500. Pushing the designs through many iterations and finally coming out with a look and feel that the airline was happy with, took a lot of patience and attention to detail.
But it was worth it!
As a result, I was then asked to come up with a design concept for a new plane to replace Aurigny's infamous Joey Trislander.
Joey was a red-nosed, wide-eyed, inter-island aircraft that won the hearts of many children throughout its life.
Alas, the end was nigh for Joey...
The Guernsey-Alderney route needed a new hero, so I took Alderney's proud symbol, the Gannet as inspiration.
Thus, Gary the Gannet was born. A cool addition to the Aurigny fleet.
Gary, though not flying yet, is expected to take to the skies very soon...
Getting The Islanders On Board
The launch of Aurigny's brand new ATR 72-500 passenger jet was a big occasion for the airline and so the arriving jet required a big reception. I worked alongside a Jersey-based events company to provide digital and printed media to promote the event with live digital support and constant coverage of the whole evening.
It turned out to be a great success, both for the airline and our agency.