GlobalAdvertisingStrategies

Situation in Focus:

Lufthansa German Airlines is the one of the largest worldwide carriers. The airline is a true international and multicultural carrier, connecting families of various ethnicities and backgrounds. Until March 2005, ethnic travelers, who are expected to make up half of the US population by 2010, mainly purchased their airline tickets through local travel agents. With technological advancements of the Internet, many of the bookings are now placed through online travel agent websites as well. With the direction of findings from Global Advertising Strategies' research, Lufthansa decided to target ethnic consumers living in the U.S. with an online product that would simplify the buying process and pass cost savings to consumers and Lufthansa itself. The airline retained Global to build and execute an integrated marketing program, promoting a newly launched customized online booking engine www.WeFlyHome.com, targeting different ethnic groups.

The main challenge was to build trust within various ethnic communities, which would surpass the trust vested in the local travel agents. Some of the additional challenges included creation of a unified strategy and messaging that would appeal to five initial ethnic groups (Russian, Greek, Israeli, Asian Indian and Polish), while respecting the individual culture of each of these groups; creation of an integrated campaign using online and offline media, as well as community events to create awareness of www.WeFlyHome.com; and finally, drive traffic and generate sales within a three-month test phase. It was necessary to discover the most effective ethnic media and other, non-traditional ways, to address the test markets, and to establish that Lufthansa, already perceived to be a high-quality carrier, offered competitive fares on www.WeFlyHome.com and cared about each of the respective communities.

Objectives:

• Shift leisure sales to the above-mentioned market destinations from agents to www.WeFlyHome.com, increasing Lufthansa's overall online sales share
• Increase overall market share in above-mentioned markets.
• Promote Lufthansa as the high-quality, yet competitively priced, innovative carrier of choice to travel home, instilling a high level of trust.

Target Audience:

Five test markets: Greek, Indian, Israeli, Polish and Russia

Services Rendered:

• Market Research and Consumer Preference Analysis
• Marketing strategy development
• In-language creative solutions
• Media planning and buying
• Online IP targeting
• PR and ethnic consumer relations
• Consulting on market preferences and trends

Outcome:

• Traffic increase on www.WeFlyHome.com went from zero to 190,000 unique WEB users in three months
• Ticket revenue on www.WeFlyHome.com surpassed business case target by 91%
• Community interest was generated among bloggers on various ethnic sites, discussing WeFlyHome program
• Broad coverage by the mainstream media in the US, as in the case of the Wall Street Journal dedicating an article, "Air Deals On Site For Immigrants - Lufthansa Service Caters to Ethnic Communities" by Avery Johnson to the WeFlyHome program
• Overall acceptance of the Global Advertising Strategies' program by the Lufthansa top management, resulting in a commitment to roll out an additional 15 country-sites for markets throughout the Central and Easter Europe, as well as the Middle East, while retaining Global to promote these markets in the respective communities within the United States.