How Turkish Airlines Engages United Fans

Turkish Airlines saluted Manchester United’s new Premiership season with a Facebook campaign, taking 19 lucky Manchester United fans, from around the world, to the city of Manchester. In this article we take a dive into the case study of this campaign.

The story began with Turkish Airlines launching the “Fans United” contest on its international Facebook page. The goal was to help a few lucky fans experience Manchester United culture in its home, the city of Manchester. The crowning point of the campaign was bringing those 19 fans to watch the world’s most popular football team live in its first home game of the 2012/13 season against Fulham at Old Trafford.

The fans benefited from various entertainments, such as watching the current season’s first home game live at Old Trafford. For the 19 lucky fans, it was not just about “watching United live,” it was an unforgettable journey.

 

One of the luckiest fans from around the world, Henk Van Zadelhoff (24) from ViralBlog’s motherland Holland, describes his experience:

“Thanks again for this trip! It was a dream came true! I have been to United before, but nothing can be compared to this trip! The flight, the crew, the Fans United winners, Manchester United, everything combined was the ultimate experience!!! I will remember it forever!”

Check out this short video of the trip:

At the end of this 4 months campaign, the Fans United application realized over 322 million impressions globally. The campaign is summarized in the infographic below:

My opinion?
I like the way Turkish Airlines embraces social media and recognizes the impact of brand awareness on success. But in the end the biggest success is the Manchester United and FC Barcelona sponsorship. This must cost a bit, but the awareness that comes with it, is massive.

I also like the way the campaign was seeded to us: A clear e-mail which makes it easy for us to post about it. But what I don’t like is the tone of voice of this article, that has been pushed by the agency on PRweb:

‘Europe’s best airline; Turkish Airlines, saluted Manchester United’s new Premiership season….’

To be clear, Turkish Airlines is the best Airline, according to the World Airline Awards. But I would always mention that in my communications, now it looks a bit strange. But also a bit picky of me…

But you have to agree with me on this one:

‘…One of the luckiest fans from around the world, Henk Van Zadelhoff (24) from Holland could not describe his feelings about this extraordinary experience:

“Thanks again for this trip! It was a dream came true! I have been to United before, but nothing can be compared to this trip! The flight, the Crew, the Fans United winners, Manchester United, everything combined was the ultimate experience!!! I will remember it forever!”

Seems to me he can describe his feeling just fine :-)?

Finally (I’m going to end this nice, I promise), I would like to mention that 322 million impressions doesn’t mean that you’ve actually reached 322 million people, but that is a no-brainer within our business of course.

I congratulate Turkish Airlines and their agencies for the successful campaign, looking forward for more!

So what’s your opinion?
What do you believe that made this campaign ‘fly’?

Source: Dekatlon, PRWeb

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About the author
Laurens Bianchi is an online marketing professional from the Netherlands and has been blogging on ViralBlog since 2008. Currently Laurens is a Managing Partner and Commercial Director at ICON&Co and Social Media Consultant for the Royal Dutch Football Association.