Title	SWISS - ATTENTIVE EYES
Brand	SWISS INTERNATIONAL AIRLINES
Product/Service	AIRLINE COMPANY
Category	A06. Events & Experiential (incl. stunts)
Entrant Company	ACHTUNG! Hamburg, GERMANY
Advertising Agency	ACHTUNG! Hamburg, GERMANY

Name	Company	Position
Andreas Heinz	Swiss International Airlines Ltd.	Head of Market Communication Sales
Philipp Schad	Swiss International Airlines Ltd.	PR Manager
Gerry Hofstetter	Hofstetter Marketing	Light Artist
Christina Zorn	Achtung! Gmbh	Management Supervisor
Max Ströbel	achtung! GmbH	Chief Strategy Officer
Imke Beermann	achtung! GmbH	Senior Account Manager
Anneli Tomfort	achtung! GmbH	Senior Art Director
Daniel Rehn	achtung! GmbH	Account Manager Digital

The Campaign

Europe’s airline business is highly competetive. Differentiation is increasingly difficult, particularly for SWISS, a brand with only a small communication budget. How can the SWISS brand attract attention throughout Europe? With its brand essence “Swissness” and its promise that it takes a more personal approach to its guests than any other airlines? By picking up on an issue that moves people. The idea: Attentive Eyes. All over Europe people are less and less attentive to each other. And desire for attentiveness is growing. Today it takes a bigger issue and real action within society to reach and touch people. With “Attentive Eyes” SWISS links its brand essence of “Attentiveness/Swissness” with the cross-culture desire for greater interpersonal attentiveness in Europe. SWISS focuses on a visual signal for the people in Europe: the eyes of SWISS flight attendants illuminate historical landmark buildings in six European metropolises in a hitherto unseen way. It is no campaign of loud messages but rather of fascinating, touching images. Images that give pause to many thousands on the ground, encouraging people to become part of this signal themselves. They photograph, film and post these powerful images and make their own “eye-selfies”. SWISS elicits a huge response with this emotion-evoking idea across all disciplines: live event, traditional media, social media, blogger relations, online, direct marketing and content marketing. An incredible success: more than 1 billion page impressions without spending a cent on paid media! And, more importantly, European brand tracking shows a clear rise for the attribute “Swissness”.

The Brief

SWISS should be visible to people in Europe, while the “Swissness” brand purpose should be made tangible and memorable. Quantitative objective: Achieve the greatest possible media visibility for SWISS in Western Europe without an expensive advertising campaign. Qualitative objective: Position SWISS as an airline that clearly stands apart from other airlines. The brand essence of “Swissness” should be tangible. The attributes of “takes a personal/individual approach to passengers” and “makes air travel especially pleasant” should both increase by at least two percent in European brand tracking.

Execution

SWISS and lighting artist Gerry Hofstetter illuminate historic and highly symbolic European landmark buildings in an unseen way – with the eyes of hundreds of SWISS flight attendants. The buildings include i.e. the Cité Internationale Universitaire in Paris and the Sagrat Cor church in Barcelona. They becoming an appeal for greater attentiveness. Every nation is proud of its cultural assets. If one is shown in an emotional light, the local media report. People take notice and want to be part of this fascinating experience. The following amplifiers are used: - International media work – i.e. with teaser films etc. - Blogger relations with dedicated Instawalks - Content marketing: photos, texts and videos are published on a C.O.P.E. (content once, publish everywhere) basis via owned and earned media. And what’s best, everybody can send their own signal for attentiveness: as part of the project “eye-selfies” are collected and shared by users.

Every light installation elicits a breathtaking response. In Milan alone, 100 journalists, 150 bloggers and countless passers-by participate. Traffic in front of the building comes to a standstill. Some 2,000 media reports appear across Europe. The story appears on the covers of high-circulation daily newspapers such as BILD and LA VANGUARDIA, and is featured by TV stations. Google’s autocomplete automatically adds the term “attentiveness” to the brand name of SWISS. There are hundreds of thousands of tweets, Instagram and Facebook posts and YouTube videos – all showing SWISS’s tail fin. The campaign has a total reach of 1 billion – without a cent spent on paid media. It is SWISS’s most successful communication project ever with a significant impact on brand perception: agreement with the statements “SWISS takes a personal and individual approach to passengers” and “SWISS makes flying pleasant for passengers” far exceeds the targeted increase (European brand tracking).

The Strategy

Reaching people in SWISS’s key markets – Germany, Austria, UK, France, Italy and Spain – means engaging with different cultures. But these people have one thing in common: an interest in travel. And the need to be perceived as individuals, as special. Flying with SWISS fulfills this need. Our mission is to shape this perception of SWISS into the targeted travelers’ consideration set. Empathy, in particular, is required to bring the brand essence of “Swissness” to life. Empathy that manages to generate attentiveness. This is precisely the universal value that is lacking in Europe as confirmed both by news about refugee policy etc. and by a specially commissioned, representative Europe-wide FORSA survey: 83% of interviewees want more mutual attentiveness – a widespread wish that unites people. Simultaneously, attentiveness is SWISS’s brand essence. The idea: SWISS links this common interest and sends a signal for attentiveness in Europe: Attentive Eyes.