It’s About Time | Positioning and re-brand for London City Airport
The only airport located in the city; London City Airport opened its doors in 1987. Because of its proximity to Canary Wharf in Royal Docks, its operations are restricted, and its growth limited. As the airport has a steep approach and short runway, no airplane larger than an Airbus A318 can use the airport, and operating hours are limited due to noise restrictions, meaning the airport is often overlooked.
There is also a perception that London City Airport is just for business travellers rather than families and holiday makers.
Bright was challenged to help increase awareness, loyalty, and revenue to compete effectively through their two most prominent marketing elements: website and advertising; working with the airport’s internal marketing department and design agency Endeavour across this campaign.
Advertising campaign
The campaign depicts nine different customer personas reflecting the airport’s target audiences, from business travellers and young city breakers, to working parents and retired travellers, alongside ideas how they can put that time saved, by choosing London City Airport, to better use. The nine adverts have launched in the U.K. and key European markets, as well as print and digital outdoor sites owned by the airport and around London, including road-side panels at Euston, Canary Wharf and Holborn.
Challenge
Raise awareness of London City Airport, increase the number of passengers, and position it as not just for business travel.
The Solution
Exploring the key benefits of London City Airport, we saw that its proximity to the city centre reduced travel times from home or work to the airport compared to competitor airports such as Gatwick and Heathrow. This allowed passengers to spend more time where they wanted to be – either at home or at their destination.
From our research and passenger persona exercises, we put together a series of user journeys and stories that we captured through informal photography. The accompanying copy, with tagline ‘it’s about time’, emphasised the concept of passengers spending their time how they wanted to, rather than on travel to the airport. The campaign ran across a range of media including out of home and print, and we then developed the creative into a series of tactical adverts promoting specific routes and destinations which ran digitally.
Customer experience is a priority for our business. To stay ahead of the game, we need to better understand customer wishes, needs and behaviours.
As the airport continues to diversify with new and exciting business and leisure routes, in addition to the core business traveller, we want to speak directly and in a very human way to new customers, who may not have considered the airport before, supported by an intuitive new website.
