In sign of times, Jet sells ad space on aircraft body

Cash-strapped Jet Airways has hit upon a novel way of raking in the moolah — carry advertisements on its aircraft exteriors for a price.

Beginning January 1, the airline has been flying a Boeing 737-800 aircraft with an advertisement wrap of Nokia’s latest launch, Nokia Lumia 800, for an initial contract of one month. The branded plane flies Bombay-Hyderabad-Chennai-Port Blair and back in that order and at night fly to international destinations Abu Dhabi or Sharjah, depending on which route is free at the time.

The carrier did not divulge the revenue accruing from such tie-ups, though sources said wrapping a plane with such sheets costs around Rs20 lakh and takes labour of 22 hours non-stop.

Manish Dureja, vice-president-marketing, Jet Airways did concede, however, that this would “definitely help boost the airline’s ancillary revenue.”

To be sure, Jet Airways does not share a break-up of its ancillary and non-ancillary revenue.

For airlines, ancillary revenue includes cash generated from food and beverages, merchandise and various forms of advertising and media.

This is not the first time such an advertising strategy is being tried in the Indian aviation space.

Captain Gopinath had tried this earlier with Air Deccan on certain routes.

Indian Airlines had also provided ad space for the Heroes HIV Aids campaign in 2007, for which the entire plane had been painted red.

Kapil Kaul, CEO- South Aisa, CAPA sees this as a good move, particularly given that airlines are desperate to cut operational costs and tap newer revenue generation opportunities.

“I think it worked for Air Deccan, it did bring in revenue. Given the current state of the industry, any revenue is good for operations. Airlines need to aggressively look at increasing ancillary revenue.

The global mark of percentage revenues that the ancillary segment can contribute is close to 15%. In terms of ancillary revenues, contribution from media or advertising is very, very negligible,” said Kaul.

It remains to be seen whether Jet takes the experiment further and whether other airlines emulate the move.

On its part, Nokia does not plan to increase this advertising strategy to more than one plane, though sources said Jet is considering putting 25-30 aircraft under such advertisement wraps in the next 12 months, understandably with other clients.

Advertising and branding experts appear divided on this account.
Anand Halve from Chlorophyll said Nokia could have attracted more eyeballs with wraps on other public transport, such as trains and buses, as it would catch much more eyeballs than a plane.
“Such marketing campaigns do not help to increase overall visibility for a brand or improve its market share. The only kind of visibility that is possible is from an innovative marketing point of view. Such an initiative will not help Nokia to sell its phones,” said Halve.

Others like Saurabh Sharma, account-head, Think Why Not, see it as a positive move and one that will be emulated.

“This sort of plane-wrap is an industry-first in India. While other airlines have promoted their own airline or sold spots on the plane to other companies for branding, this is the first time an entire plane wrap has been sold as a promotional marketing vehicle to an external company.”

On using other public transport modes for such advertising, Sharma said, “While wraps on public transport like buses or trains would ensure more visibility, this is not the target audience that Nokia Lumia is targeting, being a high-end handset, and hence a plane would make more sense. While Jet flyers may not necessarily see the plane, this kind of marketing will create a ripple effect by going viral with videos on social networking sites, etc and hence would grab eyeballs as a new advertising medium and promote visibility for Nokia. This will lead the way for more such airline branding in the future.”

Piyush Pandey, executive chairman and national creative director, Ogilvy & Mather said appeared to concur. “This kind of branding always creates a buzz and creates awareness by making the news and hence ensuring publicity for the company. I believe this kind of advertising is catching up and there is definitely more scope for such branding initiatives in the future,” he said.
Jet Airways officials remain confident the campaign would help attract visibility.

“The airline was expecting 90% seat factor for this branded flight. Jet Airways also expects viewing to be 1 million for the plane,” said Dureja.