Title	RESERVED FOR EUROWINGS
Brand	EUROWINGS AVIATION GMBH
Product/Service	EUROWINGS LONG DISTANCE FLIGHTS
Category	B10. Use of Digital Platforms
Entrant	LUKAS LINDEMANN ROSINSKI Hamburg, GERMANY
Idea Creation	LUKAS LINDEMANN ROSINSKI Hamburg, GERMANY
Media Placement	LUKAS LINDEMANN ROSINSKI Hamburg, GERMANY
Production	LUKAS LINDEMANN ROSINSKI Hamburg, GERMANY

Name	Company	Position
Arno Lindemann	Lukas Lindemann Rosinski	Chief Creative Officer
Bernhard Lukas	Lukas Lindemann Rosinski GmbH	Chief Creative Officer
Tim Hartwig	Lukas Lindemann Rosinski GmbH	Creative Director
Steffen Behrends	Lukas Lindemann Rosinski GmbH	Group Account Director
Jascha Oevermann	Lukas Lindemann Rosinski	Group Account Director
Yushu Mose Zopf	Lukas Lindemann Rosinski GmbH	Senior Art Director
Martin Gillen	Lukas Lindemann Rosinski GmbH	Copywriter
Tobias Glatz	Lukas Lindemann Rosinski GmbH	Junior Art Director

The Campaign

We discovered that you can use the small seat symbols inside the seat reservation systems as pixels – to write messages directly into the seat maps. That's why we simply selected long-haul flights offered by our competitors and reserved the right seats in their seat maps until "Fly Eurowings" was readable for all those that were booking this flight on this date. With this idea, we turned the online seat maps of our competitors into Eurowings ads by simply using an existing technology as a new advertising medium.

Creative Execution

First, we instructed people to go on our competitors' websites (e.g klm.com, airfrance.com, thaiairways.com). In advance, we had prepared detailed seat maps that precisely showed the "bookers" which seats they had to reserve. Then, they simply selected competing flights on selected dates that Eurowings also offered, reserved the right seats and went further in the booking process until the payment window popped up. Then, instead of entering the credit card information, they simply closed the window and started all over again, until the message was readable. The result of this approach was that the seats were blocked for several hours – free of any charge. "Fly Eurowings" was then readable for all potential customers that wanted to book this flight within the next hours, which created free advertising for Eurowings’ cheap flights.

The idea not only boosted the traffic on Eurowings' own booking website, but also presented the brand as a smart, funny and of course cheaper alternative to the established long-haul carriers. It also proved that you can still reach potential customers when they have already chosen a competitor. Thousands of people read the message online, which raised the awareness of the whole Eurowings brand. Even when potential customers that saw the message didn't change their minds this time, they now will always have Eurowings in mind whenever they see a seat map.

With "Reserved for Eurowings", we have used an already existing online technology – namely seat reservation systems on flight booking websites – in a whole new way. We have turned a simple online service application into a new advertising medium and created a communication touch point on the customer journey that hasn't existed before. This new use of media gave Eurowings the chance to communicate with potential customers right at the very moment they were about to book a flight with another airline.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

The target audience were people that wanted to book flights via websites of airlines that offer the same routes and destinations like Eurowings. Thanks to this innovative ad solution, Eurowings was still able to reach its target audience and give them one last chance to change their minds, even when the target audience had already chosen a different airline. To achieve this, we did not need media planning for regular online formats such as banners. Since we simply used the websites of Eurowing's direct competition, we did not need to define a target group either. All we had to do was execute. And the best of it all? We didn’t spend a single dime on paid media – because the messages were visible for several hours.