Spanair’s media-age marketing coup

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By Gerry Hadden

When the Barcelona-based airline Spanair came up with a gift-giving promotion for Christmas Eve, it hoped to gain the loyalty of a few hundred customers.

Two days later, more than a hundred thousand people have tuned in to the video, posted on various social networking sites. In marketing terms it’s an undeniable success, and another example of how good luck, good timing and a few adroit online posts can increase publicity exponentially.

Spanair and it’s marketing agency decided it would give Christmas presents to customers who flew from Barcelona late on Christmas Eve and landed in Las Palmas on Christmas Day. As the passengers waited for their luggage a line of presents appeared on the conveyor belt.

Spanair’s Chief Commercial Officer Nuria Tarre said the company spent two months planning the promo.

Click here to see the ‘viral’ Spanish version.

“Each of the gifts had their name, and they were appropriate, whether it was for children, older people, Spaniards or foreigners,” Tarre said. “We tried to customize the gift.”

Each passenger found one gift with his or her name on it: a teddy bear for a toddler, an underwater camera for a couple going on vacation, and so on.

Spanair’s marketing department filmed the customers smiling, hugging and finally clapping. They slapped some music over it and uploaded it to sites like Youtube and Twitter. And by Spanish standards, said Tarre, it’s gone viral.

“As of this morning, interestingly, this has become the news,” Tarre said. “We got more than 100 thousand views. Well, as I speak, 110 thousand views. This, in less than 48 hours.”

Spanair executives are celebrating. But there is one concern. Might Spanair be creating unrealistically high expectations among its customers?

One day it’s teddy bears, but people might start wish for anything. At Barcelona’s airport today, an American physician named Patricia Closer said she’d just returned on Spanair from Mallorca. She didn’t get a gift on her flight, but when asked what she would have liked to receive she didn’t hold back.

“Unlimited flights to Palma de Mallorca from Barcelona so I can visit my family,” she said.

Spanair’s Nuria Tarre says other personalized requests are already pouring in, via email and on online posts.

“We’re getting comments like ‘are you going to be doing that for our birthday as well?’” she said, at the company’s Barcelona offices.

For the record, she said, no, Spanair is not going to give out birthday presents. Or cakes. But on the success of its video, she said that it is promising more surprises. Download MP3