easyJet: Project Multiscreen

Sophy Part, Niall Murphy

Source: WARC Media Awards, Gold and Effective Cross-Channel
Measurement Special Award, Effective Channel Integration, 2018
Downloaded from WARC

easyJet, the British low-cost carrier airliner, focused on brand building through data and tech in the UK.

With a flat media budget and the competitive landscape shifting in favour of rivals, easyJet
needed to be more effective with marketing communications, particularly in the traditional video
space, to grow brand and sales disproportionately versus the market.
A strategic framework was developed for brand communications to retain advocacy through
premium environments that delivered a long-term emotional connection whilst lead-generation
activation benefited from cost efficiencies within set time periods, using data to optimise
performance.
Brand consideration increased by 10% and passengers travelling with easyJet grew by 8.5%
equating to 3.31m incremental seats sold, with revenue jumping by 8% year on year in 2017.

Campaign details
Brand: easyJet
Brand owner: easyJet
Lead agency: OMD UK, VCCP
Country: United Kingdom
Industries: Airlines
Media channels: Online video, Outdoor, out-of-home, Programmatic display, Social media, Television, Video
on demand
Budget: 10 - 20 million

Executive Summary
Having overcome a stagnant marketplace following the 2009 recession, easyJet, the British low-cost carrier
airliner, took a bold move by radically changing its media mix; cutting performance budgets and introducing
brand TV for the first time.

The success of this move was then faced with a new challenge in 2016; another gloomy marketplace following
the exchange rate crash after the Brexit vote was compounded by fiercely increased competition. Also faced with
media planning challenges from our audience's rapidly evolving video habits, we endeavoured to super-charge
our beloved brand-building TV with a rigorous total video plan, founded in the latest data and technology
opportunities.

Market background and context

Over the last 21 years, easyJet has risen to become Europe's leading low-cost short-haul airline, rapidly
expanding since its establishment in 1995, having grown from initially just two leased aircraft to now operating in
132 airports in 31 countries, offering over 1,000 routes.

easyJet: democratising travel across Europe

Success has been driven by a pioneering spirit, the smart operating model of 'no thrills' and low prices, fuelled
by customer demand for low-cost travel.

easyJet's marketing ambition is to champion the get-up-and-go spirit and restless desire to travel by enabling
easy and affordable air travel across Europe, allowing customers to discover and enjoy a huge range of
destinations and new experiences. We call them Generation easyJet.

Category context: a challenging environment on multiple fronts in 2017

1. Increased competition

Despite easyJet sitting in pole position in the UK low-cost airline industry for number of seats sold, this category
has become increasingly turbulent within a landscape of consolidation, convergence and waning consumer
confidence.

Full-service carriers such as British Airways are increasingly offering identical products and driving down costs
to compete with low-cost carriers across their short-haul routes. This challenge to the status quo, plus
increasing BA media budgets, had put easyJet in the squeezed middle between traditional flag carriers and
ultra-low-cost competitors such as Ryanair and the likes of Wizz Air.

New competitors such as Norwegian Air and WOW Air were also challenging the dominance of established
players who forged the EU low-cost model, by cutting costs and increasing capacity. This made it increasingly
difficult to maintain a stable load factor in terms of the percentage of seats sold on each flight.

Further to this, Jet2 had been aggressively embarking on a period of expansion, moving from its Northern
England key bases such as Manchester and Liverpool to establish a presence in Stansted Airport to compete in
easyJet's heartland of London and the South East.
Source: Nielsen Ad Dynamix

Source: Nielsen Ad Dynamix, Routesonline.com

2. Aggregators increasingly reducing direct bookings

It is also getting even more difficult for easyJet to sell flights directly due to the plethora of online travel agents
and aggregators. easyJet's point of difference can be overlooked with consumers heading straight to
Skyscanner, Google Flights or Expedia, where the cheapest price leads a consumer's decision. So, it became
clear that we had to build a direct brand relationship to drive preference.

Source: Google Trends

3. Diminishing enthusiasm for travel

Having managed to recover once from a big hit to its business in 2010, when the recession cost it overall
revenue as well as a diminished number of travellers, easyJet was now faced with another problematic climate:
terrorism and lack of consumer confidence linked to Brexit. Combining the tougher marketplace and increased
competition with these macro factors, meant that easyJet had an even tougher job on its hands, as we saw a
stark reduction in people's enthusiasm to travel and experience all that Europe has to offer.
Source: OFX.com

Marketing context: along-term shift towards TV and brand building

Between 2010-2014, easyJet managed to transform itself from a brand perceived as cheap and cheerful to one
which is also a well loved and respected household name.

The key driver of this has been a shift away from direct-response marketing, which previously almost entirely
focused on driving short-term sales.

Our current strategic focus for marketing is now dedicated towards building a long-lasting emotional connection
with the aim of driving brand preference and reducing price sensitivity in a highly competitive market.

Source: easyJet IPA Effectiveness Awards 2014

TV had historically been neglected but has since become fundamental to easyJet's marketing communications. It
is the established lead media channel to drive brand and sales results, which is testament to the strength of the
medium in building a long-lasting emotional connection and effective sales results. Don't just take our word for
it…

Business problem

So not only was easyJet faced with a fiercely competitive marketplace and a diminished consumer confidence,
the fast-changing media landscape meant that it was even more of a challenge to reach our audience with our
brand communications, particularly in the traditional video space.
Source: BARB

Source: IPA TouchPoints 2015/ 2016

Communications objectives
Given our flat media budget and the competitive landscape shifting in favour of easyJet's rivals, we needed to be
more effective with our communications to grow brand and sales disproportionately versus the market.

TV has been fundamental in growing easyJet's business ever since our strategic focus shifted towards brand
building seven years ago. We needed to supercharge our cross-channel planning approach with data-led video
planning at the centre of this.
The task was to communicate easyJet's core brand purpose of making air travel easy and affordable for
everyone and to become the most famous feel-good brand in the category.

This sense of confidence, orange boldness and optimism are what gives easyJet communications its stature and
stand out. However, this could not be at the expense of sacrificing sales in such a tough environment. We
needed a media approach that could carefully balance the need to sustain our long-term brand building whilst
delivering against the pressure to sell flights and inspire travel.

The focus remained to attract higher value customers through brand love, but this could not be done with the
luxury of an increased media budget or at the expense of seats selling performance activity. So, we developed a
framework that meant we truly focused our communications depending on what mode we were in.

It was vital for brand communications to retain advocacy through premium environments that delivered a long-
term emotional connection. Alignment next to quality content with full sound and vision was crucial to delivering
this because we knew that "… the emotional area of the brain associated with long-term memory gets lit up to an
astonishing degree by audio visual stimulus." (Source: Thinkbox, 'TV and the Brain'; Les Binet, 'The Long and
Short of it'; Peter Field, 'The Link Between Creativity and Effectiveness').

For communications that had more of a promotional sales-driving focus, our priority was to drive cost-efficient
reach within set time periods, using data to optimise performance.

And so, Project Multiscreen was born. A piece of work that started life as a best practice video planning white
paper in collaboration with creative agency VCCP, has since formed the backbone to our multiscreen planning in
its three iterations since conception. Ensuring we were effectively distributing video creative on TV and other
video platforms to maximise brand love whilst selling as many flights as possible.

Future proofing easyJet's business within a rapidly evolving media landscape meant that we had to future proof
our planning to ensure that we were reaching our audience with the right content the right number of times.
Insights & Strategy
Beginning with understanding our valuable Generation easyJet's evolving media habits was crucial, as this
confirmed TV still formed 63% of our audience's average day video content consumption. However, the
proportion of broadcaster VOD had nearly doubled in only two years, so we knew that our planning had to keep
up with these rapidly changing habits.

But we know that just because you can reach an audience in a certain place doesn't mean that you should.
Millward Brown helped to develop our thinking in this area, by understanding how receptive viewers are to video
ads on different platforms. This was especially important for our more brand-led communications as delivering a
good ad experience for our audience meant that we were behaving in the way we wanted to be perceived.

Source: DCM, Thinkbox, AdReaction Video Study Millward Brown

This informed a tailored strategy for brand versus promotional communications, where we set up rules by device
for time-length.
These guidelines lit the way for us to carry out optimal reach and frequency analysis by campaign type, which
can be recapped in six detailed stages.

1. Having aligned the brand and promotional campaigns with the correct video channels, the first stage was to
ensure that all the video views we were bringing into the mix were comparable with TV. Given that a TV
impact is only counted to 100% viewed, we ensured that all the broadcaster VOD impressions were
brought down by their average view-through rates, which, given the nature of how this content is viewed,
usually come in between 95-100%. When dealing with short-form VOD, we acknowledged that this content
is consumed differently to TV, however we still recognised the importance of ascertaining our own quality
benchmark, rather than accepting media owner standards. We therefore formulated a way of doing this by
using campaign results to identify average view-through rates by supplier. These were then cross-matched
to a percentage of audience, which gave us the percentage in which to bring the impression data down by.
In this instance, we counted 71% of YouTube and 8% of Facebook impressions as views.
1. The next stage involved establishing the effective frequency ranges by campaign across all video channels
to which we needed to optimise reach by. OMD's proprietary tool Scenario set these ranges based on
campaign objectives, market dynamics and competitor activity. The system is built by evaluating 200+
econometric models and is based on analysis of a range of advertising theories including recency and
adstock. This optimal frequency range is then translated into the most effective TV weight. Digital video
was then split between broadcaster VOD and short-form VOD.

2. Broadcaster VOD is viewed in a similar way to TV, with over 50% of views happening on the big screen
and mostly unskippable. The role in the video mix is to rebalance frequency distribution. Standard linear TV
campaigns are effective at driving coverage at lower weights of TV GRPs but can also lead to a long tail of
high frequency. By reducing the linear TV GRPs and investing in broadcaster VOD environments, this tail is
reduced and (at the correct investment blends) reach is optimised for the pre-determined frequency ranges.
3. The role of short-form VOD is to deliver additional reach because the heavier viewers of short-form VOD
tend to be the lightest of linear TV viewers. We optimised this additional reach by calculating cost-per-
incremental-cover-point values at different investment levels.

4. We utilised full-motion digital outdoor as a frequency-driving media channel, upweighting to key city centre
easyJet catchment areas. Regionality was also prioritised by over-investing in areas with low-indexing TV
viewership such as London and South East England. We delivered brand impact through stature specials,
temperature-activated dynamic creative and high-reach formats to target mass audiences at key moments.
5. The final stage in the full TV and digital video planning approach was to calculate the effective reach of all
the channels combined to ensure that we had optimised both 1+ and effective frequency levels. This was
done not only at broad demographic targeting levels, but, using the IPA TouchPoints Media Planner+, we
recreated our heartland Generation easyJet audience to ensure we were producing a strong delivery
versus them also.
Implementation and optimisation
Confident that the brilliant basics were in place for optimal weights and shapes for our video plans, we
progressed with bringing the plan to life through the fantastic range of data led TV technologies now available.

a. Campaign Refresh is OMD's bespoke linear TV equivalent of the digital technique of negatively retargeting
to drive unique reach. We used this tactic on the 'Why Not?' brand campaign, when after the first four
weeks of activity had run, we segmented the unexposed targets of this campaign into a dynamic 'non-
viewer' audience. We then identified the kinds of programmes that this audience had been viewing, which
included the likes of Little Boy Blue, Love Island, football, 24 Hours in A&E and TheFrench Open. Our
investment team used these programmes as a hit list to swap into their schedule, removing programmes
that would be more likely to drive frequency for the remaining period. At the end of the campaign, we were
able to isolate the contribution of these spots to overall campaign reach against our audience, with Love
Island and The French Open spots driving 1.3pp unique reach across the whole campaign period. Using
Campaign Refresh we reached an additional 313,000 ABC1 adults at no extra cost – equivalent to almost
£200,000 in additional TV GRPs. The success of this campaign was further highlighted by the overall
delivery in 1+ coverage, as it outperformed a burst in January that delivered the same number of TV GRPs,
a month that should easily be better at building coverage, given that the number of ABC1 adult impacts
were 17% higher than April-June's average.
b. We used Sky's first-party TV viewing data within itsAdVance technology to maximise reach against the
lightest TV viewers, by reaching them with digital video on and off the Sky estate via its Demand-Side-
Platform. Deploying this in the final stages of one of our easyJet campaigns achieved an additional 1.6%
points, which equates to +946,493 people and a monetary saving of £200,000 versus achieving this on
linear TV alone.

c. Using data from our Facebook activity to profile users that had chosen to watch the easyJet Why Not ad all
the way through, enabled us to identify the types of people most engaged with the brand. Pooling these
users together, we then analysed their biggest passion points, which we then fed back into our TV
programming selection.
d. With context and timing being so key to stimulate flight bookings, we devised a digital outdoor media plan
with full-motion dynamic creative. This activity reached our audience when they were in the right mind set
and with a creative idea that would stand out versus the competition. Wether that be a fresh flurry of snow
at ski resorts in the French Alps or a sudden heatwave in Spanish beach resorts, we showcased live data
and activated during relevant moments to inspire bookings.
Measurement approach and results
Despite a nose dive in consumer confidence driven by macro factors outside of easyJet's control, our
communications strategy led by TV has delivered fame and business success in spades.

Brand consideration has increased by 10% and, most importantly, commercial results were achieved too. The
number of passengers travelling with easyJet has rocketed by 8.5%, equating to 3.31m incremental seats sold,
with revenue jumping 8% year on year in 2017.
easyJet flew a record 60 million returning passengers in 2017, with key spikes driven during campaign periods
to deliver this uplift, as illustrated below.
Smart cross-channel media planning linking TV and digital video was also pivotal in harvesting demand and
converting awareness into action, increasing site traffic by some margin year on year.

Over and above all else, easyJet saw headline profit before tax of £408 million in 2017, demonstrating that the
role of purposeful marketing and brand building was more crucial than ever before despite an adverse headline
currency impact of £101 million.

Our super-charged approach to cross-channel media planning in 2017 helped contribute towards seeing
easyJet fly high above the competition, with share price rocketing by 65%, delivering a rather healthy return to
investors.
We were are able to confirm our planning approach worked by isolating the effects of the campaign on sales for
an easyJet package holidays campaign, which had previously never been supported by video-based media
channels before. We ran a study correlating commercial results of site visits and bookings taking place when TV
spots were playing out on-air. This insight informed a highly granular approach to optimise planning in terms of
dayparting, programming and station mix to get better each TV campaign we ran across the year.

We were able to identify at a campaign level how TV was crucially important in driving the performance of
overall website sessions. The light grey lines in the chart above illustrate TV ad emission; the orange lines are
web sessions when TV is running, which are far stronger than the dark grey lines, which are traffic when no TV
is running. This is especially prevalent within the first few days of the campaign where we had front-weighted TV
GRPs.

All in all, the campaign planning led by OMD elevated easyJet's signature orange brand presence to deliver
growth. We exceed targets both in terms of brand and commercial performance indicators, meaning lots of
happy clients at easyJet HQ at Luton Airport.

Lessons learned
Ultimately, the strategy confirmed what we had expected it would prove: media works harder when integrated
across multiple channels and video is an integral part of that mix.
The strategy and rigour which went into the campaign planning gave us a excellent template that allowed us to
replicate success across Europe in the other seven easyJet markets in which we operate. Local teams within
OMD EMEA adopted the planning approach as best-in-class agency product for the wider easyJet network to
benefit from.

Client's view
"It is fundamentally important to the easyJet business that we have a strong brand to distinguish ourselves in an
increasingly competitive market. OMD UK's future-facing planning has ensured that we achieve this in the most
impactful and effective way possible. Through a purposeful use of data, media expertise and thoughtful
consumer insight, the planning has delivered a sophisticated multimedia plan for easyJet that has grown our
brand, whilst also driving sales. TV has been the lynchpin of our marketing communication since 2010 and we
have seen our business grow disproportionately since then."

James Millet, Director of Marketing, Digital & Brand, easyJet

© Copyright Ascential Events (Europe) Limited 2018

Ascential Events (Europe) Limited
Americas: 229 West 43rd Street, 7th Floor, New York, NY 10036, United States - Tel: +1 212 201 2800
APAC: OUE Downtown 1, #44-03, 6 Shenton Way, 068809, Singapore - Tel: +65 3157 6200
EMEA: 33 Kingsway, London, WC2B 6UF, United Kingdom - Tel: +44 (0)20 7467 8100

www.warc.com

All rights reserved including database rights. This electronic file is for the personal use of authorised users based at the subscribing
company's office location. It may not be reproduced, posted on intranets, extranets or the internet, e-mailed, archived or shared electronically
either within the purchaser's organisation or externally without express written permission from Warc.