As marketers scale back customer acquisition, the recession is likely to see loyal, repeat consumers become even more important. And nowhere, perhaps, is this more evident than on airlines, where passenger profiles have already started skewing towards the affluent business travellers that have to fly, rather than the holiday-seekers who simply want to.
For in-flight media publishers, this means that frequent flyers are becoming the critical audience that they must attract and engage in 2009. ACP Magazines CEO Julie Sherborn points out that in a recession, in-flight media carry a distinct advantage. “The ability to deliver a pure audience of wealthy consumers more effectively than other media in a climate of recession provides advertisers with great efficiency,”she says.
But with the tightening of corporate business travel budgets in the region, the overall expediency of in-flight media is being questioned. It is part of an ongoing debate about the effectiveness of the media, a debate that sometimes feels as old as the aviation industry itself.
MEC Singapore MD Connie Chan, for example,believes that “in the case of in-flight media,there is a currently a lack of reliable information,” when it comes to gauging accountability and effectiveness. In times of economic strife, she argues, these factors have become even more critical.
This is a typical media agency assertion about in-flight media, and one that is countered by Peter Jeffery, CEO of Asian Integrated Media, which handles advertising sales for Cathay Pacific’s titles on behalf of ACP Magazines.
“We have monitored increasing brand awareness as a direct result of the in-flight advertising,” says Jeffery.“ There have been countless examples of executives referring to an activity they have seen during their in-flight experience.”
To try and bring some clarity to the debate, Media commissioned TNS to survey the reach and engagement of in-flight media among frequent flyers in the region’s main airline hubs of Hong Kong and Singapore.
“In-flight media is certainly not well measured, so effectiveness is hard to demonstrate,” admits Anne Woodhams, regional manager, brand expressions, at TNS. “But that doesn’t mean it isn’t effective, just that it hasn’t been proven.”
The findings of the survey are certainly eye opening. For starters, more than 99 per cent of respondents read the in-flight magazine on their last flight, with more than a third spending at least 30 minutes with the title.
Less surprisingly, 90 per cent of those surveyed watched at least part of an in-flight movie, while just over 65
per cent watched it for over 30 minutes, the assumption being that they watched the entire movie.
For other in-flight media options, reach tails off, but there are still some surprises. Most notably gaming, with
81 per cent of overall flyers playing an in-flight game on their last flight. Interestingly, over 40 per cent of anagerial staff engaged with a game for more than 15 minutes. TV content is the least successful, with a third of respondents not engaging at all with this channel.
Significantly, the results also link reach with brand engagement. More than 75 per cent of those surveyed say that in-flight media increases their interest in using the brands they are exposed to,with a similar number saying that exposure increased their desire to buy a brand’s product.
“In-flight would seem to have a high level of both efficiency and effectiveness,” says Woodhams.“I would be talking to potential clients about the length of potential exposure, prospect of repeat exposure and the potential to engage with a relatively captive audience, especially on higher involvement products,brands and services.”
Some, however, remain unconvinced, and argue that airlines and publishers still need to do more to
open up their media to brands.
“Whilst in-flight media may be successful in increasing business travellers’ preference towards brands, there is more room for engagement opportunities given the many limitations that in-flight media pose,” says Joyce Po, a planner at Starcom Singapore - which handles the likes of Richemont and Singapore Tourism Board.
Po argues that airlines themselves place far too many hurdles between advertisers looking to engage frequent flyers and a captive audience with cash to spend.“[In-flight] magazines have very strict guidelines on creative execution, and in a lot of assercases, the most that they can offer is premium pagination, content adjacency, and/or editorial support,” she says. “In some cases, when there is more leniency, the magazines charge a lot more, discouraging advertisers to consider creative executions.”
Po recognises the growing appeal of non-traditional in-flight media options, but believes airlines must take more effort to make them viable. “Media like radio and games is another area that can be tapped, but advertisers have not been given the opportunities to maximise them.” she says, adding that “operational hassles” are to blame, with airlines not really set up to focus on realising opportunities in this area.
But while media agencies are asking for the media owners to make more effort, the owners, unsurprisingly, feel the blame lies elsewhere.
“Advertisers have difficulty getting their heads around it if it doesn’t fit into the print, online and TV boxes,” says Jeffrey O’Rourke, CEO of Ink Publishing.“You have to bear in mind we are selling to 23-year-old media executives and they tend to book the same space they booked last year. It’s our job to educate the media agencies though - you need to make a compelling case to them.”
Even so, O’Rourke admits that airlines remain challenged when it comes to accurately understanding their passenger profile, another big concern for media buyers.
“Airlines are actually not that good at understanding who their business travellers are,” he explains. “They tend to classify them by when they book and the amount of advance booking time. If somebody booked it the day before the flight, it’s a very good chance it’s a business traveller.”
This difficulty is exacerbated at flag carriers like Cathay Pacific and Singapore Airlines,which tend to have a less defined audience than, for example, budget leisure players such as AirAsia and Tiger Airways.
“To appeal to advertisers, targetability is important,” adds Chan. “Currently, it can be segmented by class of travel but not always by destination, which can mean high potential wastage for clients with a specific geographic footprint.”
Clearer passenger profiles are equally important for publishers, points out Eliane Li, general manager
at Asia Inflight, which produces the inflight title for the Civil Aviation Administration of China. Knowing who
these consumers are and tailoring editorial content for them is key to providing a healthy environment for advertisers.“ It is important to know who they are, what they want and how they think,” says Li.
Despite these concerns, one inflight channel that is maintaining its appeal among both publishers and advertisers is the duty-free catalogue. Growth in duty-free titles has been robust in recent years, borne out by the results in the TNS survey, which showed that almost 97 per cent of respondents read their duty-free title, even if most spent less than 10 minutes with the publication.
As Emphasis Media’s commercial director Angelo Gidding points out, in a recession, the ability of some
media channels, such as duty-free titles, to tie sales results to advertising cannot be ignored.“Focus on retail results is always important and even more critical in the current environment,” he says.
Jeffery is also in little doubt about the importance of duty-free magazines, calling them “critical”. “We have seen firm evidence of this effectiveness, particularly with the duty-free in-flight magazines where sophisticated publishing techniques and high quality content have had a direct influence on increasing product sales,” he says.
Advertisers appear to be in agreement. Compared to other media options, brands are far more willing to spend on duty-free titles because the returns are more quantifiable. Advertisers will usually negotiate directly with the media owners to place their products and related advertising in the publication.
But duty-free magazines alone are obviously not enough to sutain the inflight sector. Says Jeffrey:“It is important we utilise the variety of platforms available to most effectively fulfill advertisers’ objectives, such as awareness
and association, where brands look to leverage on the excellent reputations of the airlines.”
Starcom’s Po agrees, but withone important qualification that once again bring the effectiveness debate to the fore.“Advertisers might need to explore more and maximise media within the environment,” she says.
“[However], there is a need to have a tracking tool to measure the success of the different media, which, at this point,remains a limitation.”
For in-flight media publishers, this means that frequent flyers are becoming the critical audience that they must attract and engage in 2009. ACP Magazines CEO Julie Sherborn points out that in a recession, in-flight media carry a distinct advantage. “The ability to deliver a pure audience of wealthy consumers more effectively than other media in a climate of recession provides advertisers with great efficiency,”she says.
But with the tightening of corporate business travel budgets in the region, the overall expediency of in-flight media is being questioned. It is part of an ongoing debate about the effectiveness of the media, a debate that sometimes feels as old as the aviation industry itself.
MEC Singapore MD Connie Chan, for example,believes that “in the case of in-flight media,there is a currently a lack of reliable information,” when it comes to gauging accountability and effectiveness. In times of economic strife, she argues, these factors have become even more critical.
This is a typical media agency assertion about in-flight media, and one that is countered by Peter Jeffery, CEO of Asian Integrated Media, which handles advertising sales for Cathay Pacific’s titles on behalf of ACP Magazines.
“We have monitored increasing brand awareness as a direct result of the in-flight advertising,” says Jeffery.“ There have been countless examples of executives referring to an activity they have seen during their in-flight experience.”
To try and bring some clarity to the debate, Media commissioned TNS to survey the reach and engagement of in-flight media among frequent flyers in the region’s main airline hubs of Hong Kong and Singapore.
“In-flight media is certainly not well measured, so effectiveness is hard to demonstrate,” admits Anne Woodhams, regional manager, brand expressions, at TNS. “But that doesn’t mean it isn’t effective, just that it hasn’t been proven.”
The findings of the survey are certainly eye opening. For starters, more than 99 per cent of respondents read the in-flight magazine on their last flight, with more than a third spending at least 30 minutes with the title.
Less surprisingly, 90 per cent of those surveyed watched at least part of an in-flight movie, while just over 65
per cent watched it for over 30 minutes, the assumption being that they watched the entire movie.
For other in-flight media options, reach tails off, but there are still some surprises. Most notably gaming, with
81 per cent of overall flyers playing an in-flight game on their last flight. Interestingly, over 40 per cent of anagerial staff engaged with a game for more than 15 minutes. TV content is the least successful, with a third of respondents not engaging at all with this channel.
Significantly, the results also link reach with brand engagement. More than 75 per cent of those surveyed say that in-flight media increases their interest in using the brands they are exposed to,with a similar number saying that exposure increased their desire to buy a brand’s product.
“In-flight would seem to have a high level of both efficiency and effectiveness,” says Woodhams.“I would be talking to potential clients about the length of potential exposure, prospect of repeat exposure and the potential to engage with a relatively captive audience, especially on higher involvement products,brands and services.”
Some, however, remain unconvinced, and argue that airlines and publishers still need to do more to
open up their media to brands.
“Whilst in-flight media may be successful in increasing business travellers’ preference towards brands, there is more room for engagement opportunities given the many limitations that in-flight media pose,” says Joyce Po, a planner at Starcom Singapore - which handles the likes of Richemont and Singapore Tourism Board.
Po argues that airlines themselves place far too many hurdles between advertisers looking to engage frequent flyers and a captive audience with cash to spend.“[In-flight] magazines have very strict guidelines on creative execution, and in a lot of assercases, the most that they can offer is premium pagination, content adjacency, and/or editorial support,” she says. “In some cases, when there is more leniency, the magazines charge a lot more, discouraging advertisers to consider creative executions.”
Po recognises the growing appeal of non-traditional in-flight media options, but believes airlines must take more effort to make them viable. “Media like radio and games is another area that can be tapped, but advertisers have not been given the opportunities to maximise them.” she says, adding that “operational hassles” are to blame, with airlines not really set up to focus on realising opportunities in this area.
But while media agencies are asking for the media owners to make more effort, the owners, unsurprisingly, feel the blame lies elsewhere.
“Advertisers have difficulty getting their heads around it if it doesn’t fit into the print, online and TV boxes,” says Jeffrey O’Rourke, CEO of Ink Publishing.“You have to bear in mind we are selling to 23-year-old media executives and they tend to book the same space they booked last year. It’s our job to educate the media agencies though - you need to make a compelling case to them.”
Even so, O’Rourke admits that airlines remain challenged when it comes to accurately understanding their passenger profile, another big concern for media buyers.
“Airlines are actually not that good at understanding who their business travellers are,” he explains. “They tend to classify them by when they book and the amount of advance booking time. If somebody booked it the day before the flight, it’s a very good chance it’s a business traveller.”
This difficulty is exacerbated at flag carriers like Cathay Pacific and Singapore Airlines,which tend to have a less defined audience than, for example, budget leisure players such as AirAsia and Tiger Airways.
“To appeal to advertisers, targetability is important,” adds Chan. “Currently, it can be segmented by class of travel but not always by destination, which can mean high potential wastage for clients with a specific geographic footprint.”
Clearer passenger profiles are equally important for publishers, points out Eliane Li, general manager
at Asia Inflight, which produces the inflight title for the Civil Aviation Administration of China. Knowing who
these consumers are and tailoring editorial content for them is key to providing a healthy environment for advertisers.“ It is important to know who they are, what they want and how they think,” says Li.
Despite these concerns, one inflight channel that is maintaining its appeal among both publishers and advertisers is the duty-free catalogue. Growth in duty-free titles has been robust in recent years, borne out by the results in the TNS survey, which showed that almost 97 per cent of respondents read their duty-free title, even if most spent less than 10 minutes with the publication.
As Emphasis Media’s commercial director Angelo Gidding points out, in a recession, the ability of some
media channels, such as duty-free titles, to tie sales results to advertising cannot be ignored.“Focus on retail results is always important and even more critical in the current environment,” he says.
Jeffery is also in little doubt about the importance of duty-free magazines, calling them “critical”. “We have seen firm evidence of this effectiveness, particularly with the duty-free in-flight magazines where sophisticated publishing techniques and high quality content have had a direct influence on increasing product sales,” he says.
Advertisers appear to be in agreement. Compared to other media options, brands are far more willing to spend on duty-free titles because the returns are more quantifiable. Advertisers will usually negotiate directly with the media owners to place their products and related advertising in the publication.
But duty-free magazines alone are obviously not enough to sutain the inflight sector. Says Jeffrey:“It is important we utilise the variety of platforms available to most effectively fulfill advertisers’ objectives, such as awareness
and association, where brands look to leverage on the excellent reputations of the airlines.”
Starcom’s Po agrees, but withone important qualification that once again bring the effectiveness debate to the fore.“Advertisers might need to explore more and maximise media within the environment,” she says.
“[However], there is a need to have a tracking tool to measure the success of the different media, which, at this point,remains a limitation.”
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