Title	THE AIRPLANE APARTMENT
Brand	KLM ROYAL DUTCH AIRLINES, AIRBNB
Product/Service	THE AIRPLANE APARTMENT
Category	A06. Events & Experiential (incl. stunts)
Entrant Company	DDB & TRIBAL WORLDWIDE AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS
Advertising Agency	DDB & TRIBAL WORLDWIDE AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS
Production Company	FONO Amsterdam, THE NETHERLANDS

Name	Company	Position
Klm/Ddb/Tribal	Klm Royal Dutch Airlines/Ddb/Tribal Worldwide/Amsterdam	Concept
Alex Herwig	Ddb/Tribal Worldwide/Amsterdam	Creative
Jeroen Thissen	Ddb/Tribal Worldwide/Amsterdam	Creative
Ralf Hesen	Ddb/Tribal Worldwide/Amsterdam	Strategy Director
Esther Te Pas	Ddb/Tribal Worldwide/Amsterdam	Client Service Director
Daniëlle Boskemper	Ddb/Tribal Worldwide/Amsterdam	Account Director
Yuka Kambayashi	Ddb/Tribal Worldwide/Amsterdam	Agency Producer
Linda Cuvelier	Ddb/Tribal Worldwide/Amsterdam	Agency Producer Assistant
Saffron Pape	Ddb/Tribal Worldwide/Amsterdam	Photographer
Tank I.s.m. Art Dept Esther Meijer	Tank I.s.m. Art Dept Esther Meijer	Interior Design
Bas Verwoerd	Fono	Director
Tobias Corba	Fono	Director
Ben Steensels		D.o.p.
Carolien Eversdijk		Producer
Femke Schreuders	Klm Royal Dutch Airlines	Social Media Manager
Simonette Verwoest	Klm Royal Dutch Airlines	Communications Manager Klm
Karlijn Vogel-meijer	Klm Royal Dutch Airlines	Manager Social Media
Rens Schoorl	Airbnb	Partnership/Fieldmarketing Specialist

The Campaign

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines is the first airline in the world to partner with Airbnb. They now offer Airbnb accommodations with every destination on their website. We were asked to introduce this cooperation and showcase KLM’s innovative character. To launch this unique partnership, we created a PR event that would definitely get noticed. We placed a one-of-a-kind accommodation on Airbnb: the Airplane Apartment. A 285-seat passenger plane transformed into a luxury loft. In an online film, we showed how 3 lucky winners had the experience of a lifetime and how KLM did everything possible to make its tenants feel at home, in true Airbnb fashion. After we put the apartment up on Airbnb, we reached out to the press and both national and international outlets, like Mashable, CNBC and the Dutch RTL4 national news, picked up our campaign. The listing itself was viewed over 370,000 times within the two weeks it was live and we received over 10,000 booking requests. The online video of our guests’ surprising stay was viewed over 3 million times. The Airbnb listing and the video generated a combined reach of 12.4 million on Facebook.

The Brief

KLM wanted to introduce their cooperation with Airbnb in a spectacular way that would get noticed and talked about. Especially by Airbnb users and KLM passengers. They wanted to showcase the innovative character of the KLM brand.

Execution

Together with interior designers, we completely stripped and redecorated the airplane and created a living room, bedroom, kids’ room and even a balcony for plane spotting. We listed the apartment on Airbnb and shared it on the Facebook and Twitter pages of both companies. To stay in this once-in-a-lifetime accommodation, we asked people to simply book it on Airbnb and let us know why they should win. A week before the event took place, we selected three lucky winners that were flown in from anywhere in the world. In the online film, we showed how these people had the experience of a lifetime and how KLM did everything possible to make its tenants feel at home, in true Airbnb fashion.

After we put the apartment up on Airbnb, both national and international press, like Mashable, CNBC and the Dutch RTL4 national news, picked up our campaign. The listing on the Airbnb website itself was viewed over 370,000 times within the two weeks it was live and we received over 10,000 booking requests. The online video of our guests’ surprising stay was viewed over 3 million times. The Airbnb listing and the video generated a combined reach of 12.4 million on Facebook.

The Strategy

What better way to launch the partnership between KLM and Airbnb than to transform a 285-seat passenger plane into a luxury Airbnb accommodation and to use the media opportunities both Airbnb and KLM offer? Instead of trying to push our message with regular advertising, we created a PR event around a unique KLM Airbnb accommodation and pushed it there where it is most relevant: on the Airbnb website and via KLM’s social-media channels. Because of the uniqueness of KLM’s plane apartment, we activated the Airbnb audience, generated massive buzz and drew the attention of the press. By sharing a film around the experiences of guests who stayed at the apartment via KLM’s social-media channels, we generated even more buzz.