Title	MY 2020 TRAVEL PROJECT
Brand	FLYING BLUE
Product/Service	FLYING BLUE
Category	D08. Market Disruption
Entrant	ISOBAR Paris, FRANCE
Idea Creation	ISOBAR Paris, FRANCE

Name	Company	Position
Marc Badinand	isobar	Creative director
Damien Lebreuilly	isobar	Copywriter
Allan Huon	isobar	Art Director
Thibaud Le Juge de Segrais	isobar	Creative Group Head
Emilie Basset	isobar	Motion Designer
Cécile Bitoun	isobar	Managing Director
Benoit Bertrand	isobar	CSO and Deputy MD dentsu creative France
Michel Kowalski	isobar	Deputy Managing Director
Marine Litras	isobar	Project Director
Ines Ait Idir	isobar	Project Manager
Anthony Raton	isobar	Producer
Magali Mayanda	Air France - KLM	Director Marketing Communication Flying Blue
Naima Kissane	Air France - KLM	Head of Content Strategy
Guillaume Ferran	Guillaume Ferran	Songwriter
Florent Hill	Yuzü	Film Director

Why is this work relevant for Social & Influencer?

This work is relevant for Social & Influencer because we created a travel influence campaign like never before: with a travel influencer who couldn’t travel nor share his pictures. As the world was under lockdown, we proposed to a travel influencer, Jonathan Bertin, a member of Flying Blue, to fulfil a cancelled trip by sending 30 cameras where he had planned to go in Tokyo. Among those, 4 cameras came back and allowed Jonathan to finally travel. This fresh travel content was turned into an influence campaign that took Jonathan’s community, Flying Blue’s members and more on an incredible journey.

Background

In 2020, Flying Blue saw its activity dramatically reduced as 70% of Air France – KLM flights were cancelled due to Covid. With planes no longer flying, the brand’s purpose to accompany its 17 million members during their journey became almost pointless. The brief: how do we maintain our relationship with our members and give them the sense of having travelled even while they are stuck at home? The objective was to redefine the notion of travel during an unprecedented year, letting members know that Flying Blue is here for every journey, near or far.

Describe the creative idea (30% of vote)

Since travel influencers are the ones who let us travel from the comfort of our homes, we figured out a way to make one of them travel safely despite restrictions so that he could take all of us on a journey. To do so, we proposed to the travel influencer, Jonathan Bertin, to send 30 disposable cameras to places he had planned to visit in Tokyo before his trip was cancelled. 30 packages were sent containing a camera and a note explaining his project to restaurants, museums, cafes… We had no idea who would open them. After several weeks of waiting, four cameras were returned containing pictures of Tokyo. We turned this original travel content into a social media campaign shared on Jonathan’s social media channels (Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter): favorite photos, a documentary, and a dedicated website and a limited-edition photo book.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

Between 2020 and early 2021, millions of people around the world were forced to stay home. The only window open to the world was through social networks. Therefore, the desire for travel content increased dramatically. Travel influencers received thousands of DMs from people asking for fresh travel content to help get them through lockdown and isolation. However, evidently it was near impossible to share new travel content without taking risks or breaking the law. We turned this tricky situation into an opportunity by working with an influencer to create a new way of traveling that took everyone on a journey. That's how the idea of sending cameras to the other side of the world was born.

Describe the execution (20% of vote)

In order to take as many people as possible on our journey, we needed to find the right profile: a Flying Blue member with a large social media audience interested in travel, and who had a recent trip cancelled. Jonathan Bertin was the perfect choice as he is a travel influencer with 250k followers across all his networks and had a trip to Tokyo cancelled. We unveiled the project in 3 steps on his Instagram account to maximize our reach: first, a teaser post to build excitement, followed by the reveal of the concept, and finally we released a documentary narrating the whole project. On top of these primary posts, Jonathan shared daily stories, tweets and TikToks directing his communities to visit a dedicated website. Each step of this journey was also relayed on Flying Blue's social networks, and a dedicated newsletter was sent to their 17 million members.

List the results (30% of vote)

Without any media investment, the 108 photos received from Tokyo (4 cameras) generated, organically: - 500k social interactions - 99.9% of which were positive reactions - +35% opening rate of Flying Blue’s newsletter - +30% increase site traffic on FlyingBlue.com - 27,4 million global reach - 27,4 million people who traveled during lockdown thanks to Jonathan’s posts The reaction of the audience was enormous and highly positive. The campaign restarted conversation around travel, during a time when it felt impossible to do so, in the comments on Jonathan’s posts. His community was inspired and hopeful that they too could travel again thanks to this concept. After gaining traction on social media, our campaign quickly garnered the attention of French mainstream media with interviews of Jonathan Bertin, Flying Blue member, in national newspapers, and on radio, national TV, and other media platforms.

Please tell us how disruption in your market inspired the work

In 2020, Flying Blue saw its activity dramatically reduced as 70% of Air France–KLM flights were cancelled due to Covid. With planes no longer flying and people stuck at home, the brand purpose to accompany its 17 million members during their journey became almost pointless. In direct response to this unprecedented situation and to reconnect with their audience, Flying Blue had to redefine the notion of travel. “My 2020 Travel Project” was created to let people travel in a new way and escape lockdown, while also raising awareness for the brand while the market was silenced.