Monarch
Colour Your Summer

Monarch wanted to boost sales in the post-Easter/pre-summer slump and stand out in a busy and noisy marketplace. This included improving their brand awareness.

Our approach was to harness an insight born out of the behavioural science behind the adult colouring cultural zeitgeist, which is all about relaxation.

The solution grew into a beautiful multichannel campaign. We identified a proactive insight and the unlikely connection between the adult colouring phenomena and the brand DNA of an airline.

We wanted to break through the expected category norms of generic destination shots of glamorous beaches and the classic angled images of ‘must-see’ spots like the Sagrada Familia. With this strategy we were able to achieve that.

The natural connection between colouring and Monarch’s goal of helping customers to ‘relax fast’ provided an unexpected idea that came complete with a look, style and language.

Our focus was letting the audience fill in the blanks and add the colour themselves. Quite literally, in the case of Leeds airport, where 30 local school kids took it upon themselves to colour in the outdoor execution!

Initially a DM concept, the concept worked so well that press, outdoor and a host of digital executions developed. These included animated gifs across the eCRM programme, a full social takeover and even a temporary redesign of the Monarch logo.

The final flourish came from a social competition, also activated through DM, which asked people to submit their own holiday photos. The winners had their entries drawn by our illustrator as bespoke pieces which they can keep and colour in too.

-Bookings increased by 11% month on month and 8% year on year.

– ‘Month on Month’ Branded Advertising Awareness increased by 4% as a result of the Colour Your Summer campaign, peaking at an annual high of 19% for Monarch (source: Monarch Brand Tracking Panel)

• This is stronger than experienced for last year’s campaign which had a higher media spend
• Competitor airline Branded Awareness actually declined over the same campaign period as Colour Your Summer, whilst Monarch’s grew to an unprecedented level

– For the first time ever Monarch’s ‘Brand Strength Share’ was second amongst competitor airlines, only behind EasyJet who spend significantly more (source: Monarch Brand Tracking Panel).

– “Relevance to me” scores increased to 51% amongst their core target audience of Affluent Elders, up from 31% for the previous Monarch Peaks campaign which had double the media spend (source: Monarch Brand Tracking Panel).

• All 3 ‘Monarch key attribute’ scores increased amongst those who saw the campaign (Service: increased to 37% from 28%; Heritage: up to 65% from 44%; and VFM up to 75% from 71%)

– Persuasion:

• The Digital Advertising was exceptionally persuasive with 8 out 10 panel respondents who recognised the campaign claiming it made them more likely to visit the monarch website (source: Monarch Brand Tracking Panel).
• Of the Affluent Elder core target audience who saw the campaign, 20% claimed to have booked a flight as a result (up from 10% for the previous Peak campaign)

All of this against the backdrop of a market down 6% according to Hitwise.