Featuring stylish young women and debonair young men, Air Canada has debuted a new creative and media strategy for its ongoing ‘Go Far’ campaign.
Inviting women to bring their ‘A-list manicure’ on board for the touch-screen TVs and men to stretch out in its first-class beds, the campaign focuses on the unique features available on most of its aircraft, Craig Landry, VP, marketing, Air Canada, tells MiC.
In a shakeup of Air Canada’s traditional print-focused media strategy, the campaign prominently features OOH, in some cases tailoring the 30-plus variations of the campaign to different parts of the city.
‘It depends on what neighbourhood you might find yourself in,’ Landry says. ‘We’ve tailored some of the executions for different neighbourhoods. Whether you’re in the fashion district or the entertainment district or the financial district, the execution will look a little different.’
The OOH element also includes high-profile subway dominations in Toronto and Montreal and three SkyTrain station dominations in Vancouver.
Media and creative were handled by Montreal-based Marketel.
The OOH is complemented by a print campaign in newspapers the Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, Calgary Herald, La Presse, Montreal Gazette and Vancouver Sun and magazines Report on Business, Food & Drink, Toronto Life and Chatelaine. There will also be a national TV buy; the details haven’t been finalized, but the company is looking to place its ads during live shows, such as Hockey Night in Canada and Tout le monde en parle, to avoid PVR passovers. There is also a small online side to the campaign, using SEM and SEO primarily in the US.
The idea for the campaign was to fight the feeling that there’s no glamour in flying, says Landry.
‘We actually believe there are a lot of elements of the Air Canada product that can and do still bring a little bit of glamour to flying,’ he says. ‘We wanted to try to have a little bit of fun in bringing that out. We’ve gone out of our way to play with glamour and there are some fresh and fun images.’
The campaign runs through October and November and is targeted at young, affluent business travellers.
