When Aeroplan was launched 29 years ago as Air Canada's loyalty program, it pretty much invented the loyalty game in Canada. Now, with so many other players on the scene, and taking into account the average consumer has nine different loyalty cards in their wallet, it has become imperative for Aeroplan to increase consumers' perceived value of the program and thus reassert its brand leadership position.
Each Aeroplan member's journey is unique and each benefits from the program in a different way. Throughout their membership in the program, Aeroplan members reach key milestones, such as miles accumulation thresholds or redemptions for flights or merchandise.
The intent was to develop an entirely new initiative that would demonstrate how each member got the most out of the program through their past personal achievements with the brand. The main insight that inspired this campaign was that members tend to forget how they have benefited from the program over the years, so it was an opportunity to explore new data visualization trends and repackage members' transactional data in a fun and engaging way.
Email was the chosen communications channel and complete member profiles were leveraged to customize each individual communication. A total of 660,000 members who had redeemed at least twice over the last few years were targeted. With most of these members being frequent travellers, they were likely more predisposed to share their experiences through online communities such as FlyerTalk.
The creative concept was a customized timeline that displayed the various milestones a member achieved over the years as an Aeroplan Member and demonstrated how the miles they earned were transformed into memories since joining the program. Within the timeline, the emphasis was put on redemption milestones, as redeeming for flights or merchandise is a key factor in how members evaluate loyalty programs. Accumulation milestones and memorable program moments were also featured.
In addition to the timeline, members received a link driving to a personalized map, already filled in with their redemption travel history from the past 10 years. Members could then complete their travel history by adding other trips they have taken and customize them with their own personal pictures. The map could be downloaded as a keepsake, emailed to friends and their travel albums shared on Facebook and through other social media channels.
In order to stimulate members to share their timeline, a contest overlay was added where they could win one of three Grand Prizes of $5,000 towards their next dream trip. To enter the Dreams Take Off Contest, members had to share their travel album, register to the contest and add their dream destination to the map.
Performance indicators demonstrated that the strategy was effective and quite a success, generating a 63% open rate (the goal was to exceed 40%), representing 404,726 unique members who engaged with the communications. In total, 23% of members responded by clicking on the link to their personalized world map, spending an average of 11 minutes on their interactive map vs. the five-minute objective.
The campaign has generated successful organic exposure on social media since members used specialized web sites, blogs and other social platforms to endorse the initiative. Some tweeted their lifetime stats, amazed by the amounts and wanting to compare with others, whereas members who took the time to build an album chose to share their travel story. Overall, 32% of members reported talking about the initiative with friends and family.
The post-campaign survey demonstrates that the campaign was well received, with a recall rate of 86%. Members responded favourably to the communications, with 60% reporting positive feelings of appreciation and an increased sense of loyalty. A third of the members stated that the communications increased their perception of the Aeroplan program for the better and reported an impressive Net Promoter Score of 67%.