Is digital in-flight advertising missing from marketers’ media mix?

Commanding attention at 30,000 feet

When passengers are using in-flight Wifi, their attention isn’t something that has to be captured — they’re already zoned in. By advertising to these groups, marketers and agencies tap into a very different consumer environment than they’ll get anywhere else.

Historically, in-flight advertising required going directly to an airline and essentially using billboard ads — targeting wasn’t available, and these campaigns needed to be set up months in advance.

“I think when advertisers think about airline advertising, there’s almost a negative stigma against it,” said Chris Demange, vp, Viasat Ads. “For example, I remember I saw the same ad 15 times on one flight with a particular airline, and I saw the same ad for every flight I took for the next three months. What we’re talking about is completely different — it’s targeted, and we do frequency capping if needed. We can drive value with real-time advertising to consumers that’s very specific within the aircraft when you have that captive audience.”

In addition to delivering advertisements in a controlled environment with limited distractions, these ads reach verified passengers, effectively removing any risk of ad fraud and bot traffic frequently encountered in the digital ad space.

Advertisers can capitalize on high dwell time during long flights to boost brand recall because this environment isn’t saturated by other ads — and can be quite targeted — so there’s no worry about standing out from the noise that exists in other marketing channels.

“When you’re in flight, you’re engaged, and this is one of the few environments where it’s a very captive audience, so when people see an ad, it actually resonates with them as opposed to them being inundated with ads when you’re at home or you’re out and about,” Demange said.

Amping up contextual, geo-based targeting to a premium audience

With modern in-flight advertising, marketers and agencies can tailor campaigns based on travel routes or go with event-based targeting. For example, a running shoe brand might want to target flights in and out of Boston based on the timing of the Boston Marathon to reach consumers when they’re likely to be most receptive to messaging from such a brand.

Rather than targeting an individual passenger, advertisers can focus on broader target audiences and messaging that still uses some level of personalization. This could include targeting flights around events like New York Comic Con or CES and tailoring messaging to fit the people who are likely attending those events.

“If your goal is to have a brand awareness campaign targeted toward CES, for example, as soon as someone leaves the plane, they’re going to be inundated with a thousand different brands,” Demange said. “The likelihood that your campaign will resonate with a customer or that they’ll even make a note of it is low — it’s hard to cut through the noise. However, if you pre-prime them as part of a broader campaign strategy with a 15- or 30-second video ad playing while they’re in-flight, you can get your value points out in advance of them arriving at that event. Then they’ll correlate the brand they see on the floor at the trade show with those pre-primed in-flight ads.”

While marketers may not have previously thought to explore in-flight advertising, in many ways, it echoes elements of contextual and geo-based targeting tactics, which are already part of the media mix for many marketers and agencies.

“That’s essentially what we’re doing,” said Demange. “It’s geographically-based, but it’s the people moving into or leaving that destination, and it’s contextual in that we know the context of this is a traveler, in the traveler mindset — it’s a premium audience, and it’s the perfect time to get them engaged in this type of offering. So, it’s contextual for the traveler, and you’re using that ad and implementing it at a time when they’re receptive without other disruptions. This is the definition of a captive audience that’s fully engaged when they see the ads.”

Fitting digital in-flight ads into the media mix

While historically, the notion of in-flight advertising may have primarily consisted of SkyMall brochures, as everything has been digitized, so too has in-flight advertising. From sponsoring Wifi experiences and in-flight audience extensions to ads placed throughout the airline passenger portal, advertisers have several ways they can choose to put their messaging in front of passengers.

“The primary ad format that really resonates with advertisers is our sponsored internet or rewarded ads, which is typically where an advertiser will get a 15- to 30-second video ad, followed by a redirection over to the advertiser’s site, where they can then follow up with more information,” said Demange. “The engagement, awareness and value are super high because passengers are watching that ad in exchange for the reward, which is getting full internet or a sponsored session.

“That’s the format we think drives the most value for advertisers and the most recognition and ROI. We also do live, in-flight TV ads,” he added. “If people are watching a program on a certain channel, you can reinforce the messaging through live TV ads, and have pre-roll ads in front of movies and TV shows, so all those ad formats can collectively become part of a holistic ad strategy for advertisers.”

Because these in-flight ad formats are served in real time, advertisers can see the campaign performance and delivery as it occurs. They can track data they’d expect to see with any regular digital ad, making things much simpler for the channel than what was previously possible.

By leaning on partners with industry expertise, advertisers can leverage multiple airlines simultaneously for their campaigns. This increases efficiency and ensures their ads meet airline requirements as well as campaign targets. As advertisers continue to seek more unique yet effective ways to reach audiences, cut through the noise of the digital ad space and maximize impact, digital in-flight advertising is proving to be a viable, scalable option. Teams can more easily incorporate in-flight advertising into their marketing mix by integrating the approaches they’re likely already using for contextual and geo-based campaigns.

“Our objective is to make advertising for the airline industry easy, which has historically been very complicated,” said Demange. “The value of getting customers in-flight seems a pretty obvious benefit — if I’m an advertiser, of course, I want to get the airline audience. But when you’re on the airplane, you see the same ad every time, so what does that tell you? There’s a disconnect. There’s value there, and yet the industry hasn’t been truly able to tap into that market, but we’re changing that paradigm.”

Sponsored by Viasat Ads