When I joined United Airlines as Regional Marketing Manager UK&I/MEAI, they had virtually no presence or brand equity in the UK (other than on Skyscanner results pages where it would invariably show up against BA or Virgin Atlantic). We didn’t have the budget to go against BA and Virgin on any above the line activity at the time, so I wanted to try and focus on the digital space with a lean towards brand education and a reason to believe.

 

The other issue was that, if you were savvy enough to Google United Airlines from the UK you would likely find news reports of lost guitars (which came with a very highly-viewed YouTube music video created by the owner of said lost guitar) and pets that had unfortunately died in transit with us. I felt it was important to create a mass interest series of content to capture attention through exposing the inner workings of an airline whilst also seeding in sales/route/brand messaging.

 

After several attempts at getting approval from the Chicago head office where they were surrounded by a home market audience who had a love and affinity for the brand that was worlds apart from what I was dealing with, I got the go ahead for a small budget, very crude online series called Big Metal Bird in which we had episodes covering what happens to luggage once you hand it over at check in (I even persuaded a senior board member to get in a suitcase which will always be a career win for me), what turbulence is and route planning. We got really nice pick of it across more than just the UK&I markets to the point where it became a full series with a second season.