For the past eight years, WestJet has been surprising and delighting its guests throughout the holiday season and delivering a Christmas video that spreads the holiday spirit. This year we wanted to position WestJet as a brand that cares and showcase our partnership with the Ronald McDonald House Charities Canada all while sparking joy in our guests around the holidays. For this year’s Christmas Miracle, instead of WestJet deciding who gets what, who goes where or what gets reunited with whom, we left the decision making to our guests. With eight successful WestJet Christmas campaigns already completed, how could this year’s approach continue to build a deep connection with our audience in an ever-changing digital landscape while positively influencing revenue.
WestJet Business Challenge:
Build a creative, innovative and share-worthy creative platform that reaches people in a relevant and meaningful way
Strategy:
To provide guests with a platform and gifts to spread holiday cheer by either giving a gift to a family in need or receiving a gift to make their own holiday wishes come true.
Implementation
There were three primary implementation tactics used:
Teaser Video: In November, a teaser video was released on social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube) introducing the newest character, Ebeniza Scrooge. This was used as an opportunity to tease the upcoming Christmas Miracle concept and engage viewers/followers.
Social Media Contest: Following the teaser, there were 10 contest videos released on social media that allowed viewers to show their support. Viewers could like the video to have the monetary value of the prize donated to the Ronald McDonald House, or love the video to keep the prize for themselves. This gave viewers the opportunity to use their social media platform in a unique way and have a direct impact on the storyline of this campaign.
Hero Video Launch: The soft launch of the hero video was on December 8th and was shared on social media at 6PM as well as sent out to all rewards members and WestJetters. On December 9th, the paid media campaign began to amplify the campaign nationally.
Key Features
Experiential Pop Up Event: Situated at Toronto Brickworks, a giant blue Santa hat was constructed alongside a WestJet Christmas market. This pop up created excitement at the market and encouraged guests to come enjoy a WestJet Christmas experience with their families. In addition, the pop up created a great touchpoint for WestJet with its current and potential guests as we were able to offer a unique experience and have direct communication with these guests.
Hologram: One of the key components of this campaign was to create a sensory experience that made a lasting impression on the guests inside the hat. To accomplish this, we worked with ARHT Media and created a live hologram of Blue Santa and Ebeniza Scrooge that was streamed inside the hat. To ensure every guest had a personalized experience, WestJetters were sent out to mingle with guests at the Christmas market and relay information back to Santa and Ebeniza. Once the guests stepped inside the hat, they were greeted by name and were encompassed in an experience that was entirely tailored to them.
Christmas Miracle Online Hub: The daily social contest results and total donation tally lived on the WestJet Christmas Miracle microsite which was linked to westjet.com to drive traffic and sales. The Hero video was also amplified nationally to drive mass awareness around WestJet.
Twelve videos were shared on the WestJet social media feeds and designated content hub reaching 104.8M media impressions. They generated over 7.4 million video views, an impressive increase of 31% compared to 2018.
The 2019 campaign was designed to drive social engagements by asking Canadians to participate in the conversation by using the hashtag #LikeWestJetChristmas or #LoveWestJetChristmas. This strategy proved to be successful, as the majority of social engagements were attributed to the use of these hashtags on Twitter and Facebook. The 2019 campaign had 21.1M impressions, a 1400% increase in social engagement compared to 2018. Additionally, the sentiment was 92% positive, and had many comments highlighting it as the best WestJet Christmas Miracle to date.
Through the content we shared we were able to connect with potential consumers and enhance their desire to make a direct booking with WestJet.
Most importantly, 240 one way flights were donated to the Ronald McDonald House Charities, helping families reunite with their loved ones during difficult times.
