INDUSTRY WATCH

Delta Air Lines and Digitas Take Placed-Based
Digital Media to New Heights

Awareness of Delta as an international carrier increased by more than 28%.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA — Delta Air Lines, the world’s No. 1 airline, and Digitas, a leading global digital agency, today announced the results of a place-based digital advertising campaign aimed at raising awareness among business travelers in the New York area for Delta as a preferred international carrier. Edison Research, an independent research firm, conducted market research to gauge the effectiveness of the campaign, which also included traditional media. Using SeeSaw Networks’ national network of placed-based digital advertising screens, the campaign ran in locations that Delta’s target audience of business travelers visits throughout a busy week, such as ferry terminals, health clubs, gas stations and cafes. The results indicate that the campaign increased awareness and drove stronger consideration for Delta’s international travel routes among the target audience.

Delta Air Lines and Digitas, which planned and ran the campaign between late February and mid June 2009, chose placed-based digital media as a component of their advertising strategy. SeeSaw’s comprehensive network provides the scale and context national advertisers need to intercept the “life patterns” of their target audience and deliver contextually relevant messages in multiple places throughout a busy week. In addition, SeeSaw’s precision targeting also enables highly targeted regional campaigns such as Delta’s four-month campaign in New York City.

“SeeSaw Networks allowed us to extend the reach of our place-based out-of-home program into key areas that provided us with the ability to target messages to specific places at certain day parts, and surround our target with relevant messaging at every point in their day,” said Pat Connolly, Vice President/Group Director, Digitas. “Momentum for place-based digital video advertising has been building for quite some time, and as this Delta campaign on SeeSaw’s network demonstrates, this new medium continues to grow, providing advertisers the impact of out of home, with the flexibility of digital.”

Edison Research surveyed consumers prior to the launch of the place-based advertising campaign and again during the campaign to measure how effectively the messages reached Delta’s target audience and whether awareness was increased. The results indicate that Delta accomplished its goals. Place-based digital advertising successfully reached the target audience and increased awareness of Delta as a preferred international carrier. Specifically:

Awareness of Delta as an international carrier increased by more than 28%.
Among business travelers, the perception that Delta “flies to the international destinations you want to go to” increased 26%. The percentage of people “very likely” to recommend Delta to friends, family or colleagues increased by 61 percent.

32% of those who noticed the screens (index of 695 against U.S. national average) fit Delta’s income demo.
Those who noticed the screens were frequent travelers who had an average of 5.2 business trips a year.
Overall awareness of Delta increased by 15%.

“The Delta campaign on SeeSaw’s national network demonstrates the power of place and how place-based digital advertising delivers business results by intercepting a specific audience across multiple touch points during their daily routines,” said Suzanne La Forgia, President of the Out-of-Home Video Advertising Bureau (OVAB).

During the campaign, multiple versions of creative rotated over five digital networks including on RMG Networks screens at cafes, on large plasmas on the WHEN network of health clubs, on cardio machines on the NetPulse network in health clubs, in ferry terminals through the Affinity Network, and on PumpTop TV at gas stations. Digitas created four separate sets of creative, promoting Delta’s service to Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas. These rotated on a weekly basis over the course of the campaign. Additionally, SeeSaw provided timely integrated proof of performance reports across multiple networks, enabling Delta Air Lines and Digitas to get regular feedback on the campaign’s performance.

“Like so many advertisers and agencies, Delta Air Lines and Digitas found that SeeSaw Networks combines scale, flexibility and sophisticated tools to make it easy to plan, manage and measure national place-based digital video advertising campaigns. This media offers a very cost effective way for advertisers to reach their target audience and is a perfect complement to a digital media campaign,” said Peter Bowen, CEO at SeeSaw Networks.