Media Plan of the Year: JetBlue Celebrity Baggage

I’m proud to announce that mediahub from Mullen and JetBlue this week won the coveted Adweek Media Plan of the Year Award.  We won it in the “Alternative Media” category for a program called “Celebrity Baggage.”  It ran in the strategically important Los Angeles market and used multiple tools in Mullen’s hyperbundled arsenal – PR/Social, Creative, Media, Mobile, Digital, Experiential.

Background
JetBlue allows passengers’ first bag to fly for free, but research shows the brand was not getting credit for this “differentiation” in LA. Because consumers have high expectations of JetBlue, it raises the bar to deliver an original and less “ad-like” communication plan. Most media campaigns are solved in a :30 spot or a 300 X 250 banner, but we took a contrarian approach and invested our energy in creating something more surprising and more “JetBlue.” Our goal was to develop a “movement” and build support around this experience to fuel conversation and news.

Creative Solution
We created an event in which we asked A-List (Lindsay Lohan, Brittany Snow…) celebrities to donate a piece of luggage that we could auction off for a Los Angeles charity. To promote the auction, we ran full-page print ads in the LA Times, Variety and People magazine. We also ran rich media across entertainment sites/blogs, both online and mobile, that showcased the auction items and time left to bid. The most powerful element was a customized interactive video unit that showcased the celebrity baggage at Santa Monica Place, as well as a QR code that people could capture from their smartphones and be taken instantly to the auction site. Consumers could walk up to the screen, select the celebrity of their choice and then play around with pictures of the baggage.

Results

The campaign gained tremendous press coverage in over 150 media outlets resulting in 68 million bonus impressions. Plus, with celebrity tweets from Brittany Snow and DJ Pauly D, an additional 7 million impressions were garnered via Twitter. Social discussions about the brand increased over 200% while the campaign was running and we raised over $44K for DoSomething.org.

Most importantly, we got “buzz” in LaLaLand and firmly established the JetBlue brand in this important market.

note: Katie Thompson, Marissa Curcuru and Dustin Johnson contributed to this post