Hasta La Motion!

The British Airways “Magic of Flying” campaign, run in London in November 2013, has won the Direct Grand Prix at Cannes International Festival of Creativity. The objective was to raise awareness of the breadth of destinations offered by British Airways, their new routes and frequency of flights. OgilvyOne wanted to create something truly engaging to remind us all how magical flying really is. Billboards in Picadilly and Chiswick changed every moment a BA plane flew overheard. People were driven to the ‘Look Up#’ site, ba.com/lookup, where they could find out more about the poster and explore the destinations and even weather reports, and then book a flight.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtJx_pZjvzc

The billboards were outfitted with a special ADSB antenna which read every aircraft’s transponder data within 200km. The ads displayed real flight data: the flight number and where the plane was flying from. Dynamic retail messaging was matched to each route too. Weather feed was used to monitor cloud height to ensure the plane is visible before showing the advert. Within the first few weeks alone traffic to BA.com was increased by 75,000+ unique visits, over 1 million YouTube views and a global reach over 350 million people.

Credits

The Magic of Flying campaign was developed at OgilvyOne London by executive creative directors Emma De La Fosse and Charlie Wilson, concept creator/creative technology director Jon Andrews, creative director/art director Andy Davis, creative technologist Lorenzo Spadoni, project manager Julie Laure Coassin, and account director Alicia Iveson.

Filming was shot by director Patricia Murphy, of Patricia Murphy Films, London, with producer Robert Michaels.

Digital technology was developed at Storm Digital.