KLM BONDING BUFFET

TitleKLM BONDING BUFFET
BrandKLM ROYAL DUTCH AIRLINES
Product/ServiceKLM BONDING BUFFET
Category A05. Travel, Transport & Leisure
Entrant DDB & TRIBAL AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS
Idea Creation DDB & TRIBAL AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS
Production WEFILM Amsterdam, THE NETHERLANDS
Credits
Name Company Position
Nick Maas DDB & Tribal Amsterdam Copywriter
Leo van Oss DDB & Tribal Amsterdam Art Director
Ed van Bennekom DDB & Tribal Amsterdam Creative Director
Jasper Diks DDB & Tribal Amsterdam Creative Director
Ralf Hesen DDB & Tribal Amsterdam Strategy Director
Sophie van Pelt DDB & Tribal Worldwide, Amsterdam Executive Producer
Esther te Pas DDB & Tribal Amsterdam Business Director
Jan Boon WeFilm Director
Ernst Koning Ilias Ernst Industrial Designer
Tim van Paassen The Compound Online editor
Daan Nieuwenhuis Daan Nieuwenhuis D.O.P
Daan Wierda Daan Wierda Beeldmontage Offline editor
Massive music Massive music Music
Frank Houben KLM Royal Dutch Airlines Global Brand & MarCom Director
Natascha van Roode KLM Royal Dutch Airlines Head of Global Marketing Communication
Mirjam Esveld KLM Royal Dutch Airlines Global Marketing Communications Manager

The Campaign

Airports can be lonely places. Especially when you are travelling around Christmastime: a time for sharing, unity and togetherness. KLM is in the business of bringing people together all around the world. What if it could already bring people together while on the road? We installed a table for 20 at Schiphol airport, but it was 4.5 meters high, so that people could not reach the Christmas dinner served on it. 20 stools surrounding the table were equipped with a pressure sensor. With every traveller that sat down on a stool, the table was lowered a little. Travellers were excited and started to work together to lower the table. Dozens of people from all over the world put their phones or books aside and enjoyed a very special Christmas dinner together. We filmed the event and shared the video – all about sharing, unity and togetherness – online right beforeChristmas.

Creative Execution

In the busiest part of one of Europe’s biggest airports (Schiphol) we built a table you couldn’t miss. It was there from morning till evening, giving every traveller that day the opportunity to use it and thus bond with fellow travellers. The table had a Christmas dinner on top of it, towered 4.5 meters high, and was surrounded by 20 stools. Every time a person sat down on a stool, the table lowered a little bit, inviting strangers to work together. A compilation of the day’s best moments was shared via KLM’s social channels just before Christmas. We concentrated all our promotional efforts in a single week around Christmas. 80% of the results were accomplished through earned media effects.

Results

In just a couple of days, KLM’s Bonding Buffet video grew to be the most popular KLM online video ever. In total it reached over 150 million (!) people worldwide, collected over 95 million views and was shared almost 1 million times. Over 2 million people gave it a Like or a ‘Great’ (Big Like) and comments were almost exclusively very positive. It’s now officially the most watched online Dutch commercial ever. Almost 80% of these results were accomplished via organic reach / earned media: consumers sharing the video with friends or media sharing it with their audience. Many national and international blogs picked up the video, most notably the International Business Times (Headline: ‘KLM’s incredible Bonding Buffet at Schiphol’) and 9GAG. Each and every editorial piece was positive about KLM’s initiative, some media called it the very best Christmas campaign of the season.

The Direct Eurobest category celebrates response-driven and relationship-building creativity. With a heart-warming brand message of unity and togetherness, and just a very soft call-to-action, we were able to motivate our target audience to engage with our brand and massively share our message via social media. This produced astonishing results (measurable and meaningful). Over 80% of the audience we reached was reached via people sharing the brand’s story with their friends or through editors spreading our message. Based on these facts, and the very many positive comments to our message, we believe this work is relevant for Direct Lions.

KLM wanted to reach as many people as possible, primarily people who take one or more flights a year. People from different cultures, living all over the world. We created a heart-warming social video around a surprise buffet at Schiphol Airport. A message about unity and sharing, which tied in with both the festive season spirit and KLM’s brand purpose. A message that did not need a prominent call-to-action, because just about anyone in the world would like to engage with it and share it, at the end of a year full of turmoil. Because of KLM’s ambition to reach as many people as possible, we focus our efforts on a social video people would love to share. We sent a press release to media that focus on digital trends and seeded the video on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. We concentrated all our efforts in a single week around Christmas.