Find out how Gravity Global won for ‘Best product launch campaign’, ‘Best customer engagement initiative’, Best use of digital techniques or technologies, ‘Best use of creative’ and ‘Best use of content marketing’.
About the client company
Embraer, a Brazilian company, is a world leader in the design and manufacturing of aircraft in the 70-130 seat segment (known as regional jets), competing against Boeing, Airbus and challengers including Sukhoi and Mitsubishi.
Strategy – broader business issues the company is facing
An integrated campaign that utilised events at and around air shows, viral video, VR and AR, animated OOH, Print, Social Casts and Social Media.
Gravity research even prior to Covid-19 indicated that the key issue occupying airlines was generating profit. Recent events mean this now has even greater focus.
Gravity created personas for the audience and the aircraft. Renaming the E190-E2 and E195-E2 (not memorable) as the ‘Profit Hunter’ reflected the proposition (most efficient/profitable) and the target market’s needs (profit) – something even more relevant in the current environment.
The ‘big idea’ was to use hand-painted predators from the natural world on nose cones to attract attention and reflect efficiency and profit making.
The Paris Air Show was chosen as the stage for the global roll out of the all new E195-E2 – famously nicknamed the Profit Hunter – Tech Lion
Our challenge was to ‘own’ the Paris Air Show and make the campaign relevant to airlines looking to renew their fleets with next generation aircraft.
However, competitors were claiming the E195-E2 was not a clean sheet design and therefore adopted older technology. This rumour was not the case but it was starting to gain market traction and perceptions can be dangerous.
As well as reflecting the predatory theme, we needed to highlight the new technology on the aircraft. We created experiences using AR and VR to showcase technological innovations.
The lion was chosen because of its predatory prowess and for being known as the King of the Jungle, perfectly matched to positioning the Profit Hunter’s technology.
The lion creative required bravery because never before had we attempted to paint an entire aircraft and neither had the artist, an employee of Embraer. This was so successful customers are now asking for their own aircraft to be painted in similar styles.
The aircraft was then to be used to create an AR experience showcasing the noise-to-tail technology.
The idea was hugely positively received, dominating the Paris Air Show, featuring extensively in the world’s leading media, doubling the reach of the campaign and creating queues to see and be photographed with the aircraft.
The teaser video for the Profit Hunter Tech Lion received over 1m Youtube views.
The follow up reveal video, featuring an animated ‘Tech Lion’ brilliantly transforming into the Profit Hunter aircraft achieved 1.2m views, and is now Embraer’s most watched video of all time.
We also created documentary style films called Incredible Journeys showing how the new Profit Hunter aircraft are enabling airlines in places like Kazakhstan and Brazil open up to new routes. The series so far has achieved 1.7m views.
Created a news TV show from the Paris Air Show called Air Sights engaging our audiences with ‘snackable’ news items broadcast on Youtube and receiving an average 50k views per news item.
Objectives of the campaign
- To support the global roll out of the all new E195-E2
- Lead the aviation headlines during Paris Airshow and beyond.
- Land the tech message with audiences in an imaginative way.
- Beat previous campaign results.
- Outperform Positive Brand Sentiment with Boeing and Airbus.
- Increase global reach and brand awareness by maximizing media opportunities across paid, owned and earned on the same budget as previous year.
- Ensure prospects visit the aircraft during a sales tour.
The target audience
The C-suite, operators of 70 airlines across 50 countries in existing and new markets including leasing companies, analysts and the media.
Media, channels or techniques used
- Painting the ‘Profit Hunter’ aircraft nose-to-tail with ‘Profit Hunter Tech Lion’ livery
- Press, online display and paid social advertising
- Paid and organic social posts
- Animated outdoor display at airports/events.
- Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube Communications
- Embraer TV streamed live on social media
- Blogs from Embraer and Aviation bloggers
- VR experience of flying the Profit Hunter
- AR to demonstrate the technology on the aircraft
- Produced a new Market Outlook report – Market forecast, challenges and opportunities for the next 20 years (digital and print versions)
- Created a short film series: ‘Incredible Journeys.’
- Customer events
Timescales of the campaign
Phase one: Pre-Launch of campaign at Paris Air Show June 19
During show: 17th – 23rd June19 and post show – ongoing.
Phase two: Launch with global tour March 20
Paid, Owned and Earned campaigns 2019/20/21
Results
- Completely outperformed across all KPIs.
- Achieved 12 new customers, 86 aircraft orders $5bn in order value.
- Brand Mentions up 88.8% YoY totaling 939,913
- Audience reached up 79.3% – 28.8bn.
- Engagement up 26% YoY
- Net sentiment +85% monthly average for E-jets – highest recorded net sentiment of all manufacturers.
- Follower base growth rate – 150% faster than competitor Airbus.
- Engagement per follower is x2 nearest competitor.
- 44% increase in ‘likes’ YoY
- 89% increase in ‘Earned’ posts YoY
- 26% increase in ‘comments’ YoY
- Growth as a global brand with increases across all regions in impressions: Americas +25%, Europe +125%, Africa’s +400%, Asia-Pacific +35%
- 3 of the top 5 most watched videos on Youtube were published in the last 12 months
- Teaser for TechLion – 1m views
- King of the Skies (Tech Lion) – 1.2m views most viewed video.
- First customer film – Azul – receives 635k views
- The Azul aircraft delivery ceremony was streamed on Youtube and received more than 250k live views-the first ever aircraft delivery to be streamed live.
- COVID pivot – Youtube video ‘For a Different World’ received 325k views in first two weeks.
- 6 episodes of Incredible Journeys – achieving 1.7m video views
- More than 25% of the viewers watched the full episode; which is remarkable when you consider they are typically over 6 mins long
“Gravity Global created the Profit Hunter branding for Embraer Commercial Aviation and it has been an incredible global success with ...customers, journalists, employees and the wider industry. The iconic branding of predators on the front of the aircraft has attracted a huge following and even customers have adopted the idea for aircraft in operation. We wanted an idea that would make Embraer famous across the world and Gravity exceeded our expectations with the power of the Profit Hunter branding. It’s fast becoming the most successful branding programme in B2B marketing."
