Digital Marketing In The Sky

Aeroplanes represent the one place where you can literally disconnect from the world…from work, emails, social media even your parents lol, well not anymore ! Mobile devices & tablets are now constant travel companions with consumers and now more than ever consumers are seeking to stay connected while they are in transit

This Infographic (from 2012 -bit outdated) exemplifies this…with 97.8% of people taking a wifi enabled device with them on their travels, with 80% saying they use it all the time.

Combined this with the fact that more and more airlines are implementing cellular roaming and wifi on board flights means that we can now be connected anywhere in the world even 30,000 feet above the ground. Consumers can now keep their friends and family posted about their flight, the quality of service, food and inflight entertainment offered.

Although Inflight connectivity remains an elusive touchpoint, Airlines are investing big dollars to implement this service.

The important question is what it means for digital marketers?

For me personally, If Airlines continue to invest in technology to make this a reliable platform in terms of its connectivity across countries and connection speeds marketers could have an unprecedented opportunity to capitalise on a massive audience while it flies. For example marketers could place advertisements in the form of pre roll video ads, or alternatively they could sponsor the airline to make inflight connections cheaper for consumers. Google for example sponsored a number of US airlines to provide Free Inflight Wifi over the holiday season, which directed people to their browsers- clearly a smart move from the company.

But not all airlines are onboard (pardon the pun) the inflight wifi train. Qantas firmly believes that while it may be viable for domestic flights, International flights don’t have the same demand with people embracing the fact there not connected according to their research.

Anyway whether you like it or not, its inevitable that we will all be soon digital connected in the air, and thus there are clear opportunity’s for marketers to make a splash

Some key questions

Would you purchase inflight Wifi during a long flight overseas?
Would you fly one airline over another if one offered Inflight wifi service and the other didn’t?
How else could marketers exploit this platform?

Sources

Mobile Habits Put Marketers In Flight, Retrieved May 5, 2015 From http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Travelers-Mobile-Habits-Put-Marketers-In-Flight/1009817 (Infographic and information source)

Thanks for reading guys, 🙂