easyJet gives Europeans the rare opportunity to break away from the everyday, leave their inhibitions behind, and embrace the moment—just like Eurovision.
As the Official Airline Partner for the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest, easyJet asked DEPT® to help promote the partnership with a social strategy that strengthened community amongst their audience by embracing the weird and wonderful obscurities of European culture and the unbounded joy of travel.
Preparing for take off
Like any great trip, participation and enthusiasm are what make Eurovision memorable. To earn both, we helped easyJet create a multi-phase social campaign built around a single, simple idea: “It’s Your Show, Get Out There”.
Our campaign would be rolled out over two and a half months and split into two phases. The first phase would establish awareness during the lead-up to the big event, and the second would generate additional buzz and excitement with a splashy activation in the final weeks.
The content strategy behind the campaign demonstrates the ethos of “It’s Your Show, Get Out There” by celebrating the exciting possibility of an event like Eurovision with easyJet passengers, planes, and people.
The splashy activation, which served as the hallmark of our strategy, would cap it all off: easyJet’s own Eurovision-inspired pop anthem.
Smash that play button: creating easyJet’s own Eurovision banger
To create an irresistible earworm that was worthy of representing easyJet’s partnership with Eurovision, we needed to find the perfect singer/songwriter matchup.
Fortunately, our choices were clear from the beginning. After all, who better to take on the challenge of integrating the joy of travel with the camp theatrics of Eurovision than a group that had already done exactly that!
To that end, we lined up Scooch, the British pop group who earned a place in cultural history books with their infamous airline-themed entry at Eurovision 2007, and paired them with Vikki Stone, the Olivier-winning comedy songwriter—and unapologetic Eurovision superfan.
The result of this pairing was “All Aboard the Orange Plane,” a song that paid homage to Scooch’s original Eurovision performance while turning up the dial on humor and travel. In addition, we also created a music video featuring Scooch in brand-new, bright orange cabin crew uniforms as well as cameos from other iconic Eurovision entrants.
The utterly addictive song was a smash from the beginning, with Eurovision fans giving it an overwhelming ‘douze points!’ verdict and calling for “All Aboard the Orange Plane” to be performed in Malmö or, at the very least, released on Spotify.
But we didn’t stop there. To expand our reach, we identified three European creators and influencers who represented everything great about Eurovision. We enlisted Drag Race UK winner Tia Kofi (352k) to host karaoke in the skies, while European drag royalty Kiddy Smile (98k) and Le Riche (35k) shared their own reinterpretations of easyJet’s anthem with their followers.
To keep the party going for the duration of Eurovision, we invited them all to continue capturing content from aboard an easyJet flight to Malmö!
Driving engagement by celebrating superfans
In addition to inspiring easyJet’s anthem for the campaign, the vibrant (and uniquely European) lens of Eurovision served as the inspiration for the content strategy we conceived.
By drawing on the nostalgia of Eurovisions past, we created anticipation for a new year of dazzling performances, glamorous characters, and iconic moments while defining easyJet as one of its most appreciative fans—and one of its biggest assets.
We weren’t about to leave easyJet’s crew members out of the fun, either. We spoofed classic street interviews and ‘caught’ easyJet staff listening to music on their breaks. Upon asking them what they were listening to, they each revealed a different niche Eurovision banger.
Soaring to new heights
The campaign overall (delivered in collaboration with T&Pm) secured 235 pieces of media coverage, reaching 569 million people, all supporting a 28% increase in brand consideration.
In addition to plenty of coverage and plays on the UK’s Gaydio radio station, “All Aboard the Orange Plane” racked up over 14 million views and countless follow-ups on social, featuring fans recreating the music video or lipsyncing to the track.
The reaction was so positive, in fact, that fans flooded the comments section asking easyJet to release the song on Spotify! And what better way to react than to do exactly that?
Surprisingly, easyJet found one: in line with the release of their Eurovision anthem across music streaming platforms, easyJet donated the estimated value of the song’s royalties to UNICEF, its charity partner, as a contribution toward the ‘Every Child Can Fly’ campaign.
Questions?
Strategy Director
Rasmus Keller Jansen
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