Fly Derrie-Air Proves Newspaper Advertising Still Works (Sort Of)

A few weeks ago the Philadelphia Inquirer and a few other local papers in the Philly area launched a very interesting mock advertising campaign for a new airline called "Derrie-Air" which was proposing the revolutionary new business model of charging air passengers based on the combined weight of their luggage and themselves. The site describes what makes Derrie-Air unique: "the magic comes from our one of a kind "Sliding Scale" the more you weigh, the more you'll pay."

We've all been in situations where we could imagine the logic of having a policy like that, but it turns out the campaign was a joke that ordinary consumers could pass along to others, and one from which the newspaper could collect valuable metrics from. The problem with the campaign is that it takes exactly the kind of one sided view the doesn't work anymore. For example, the newspaper ad drove a group of people online from the Philly area, and those people likely emailed the site to friends or blogged about it. Other sites picked up on the campaign and decided to also feature it. I learned about from an email - and found coverage on several advertising and marketing blogs already about it.  If you are reading this now and hadn't heard of the campaign, you just learned about it from a blog.

I am sure the site got great traffic and the Philadelphia Inquirer and the other papers behind it reported these fantastic metrics to advertisers in order to get more of them to buy into the paper. I think real lesson here, however, is that no matter which channel you choose to promote in, they will all be interconnected. For this campaign, newspaper provided the initial surge in traffic, however anything after that would have to be attributed to word of mouth, either online or offline. The irony is that inadvertently, the campaign probably proved how interconnected media really is ... and how clueless some advertisers really are if they believe a pitch that tells them all the visits to this mock site can just be attributed to a few newspaper ads.

Comments

[Josh Klein]

What I find most interesting about this case study is the effect of email and social media on traditional media. Because we are more closely interconnected, and each of us as a consumer has our own platform from which to disseminate information, the ripple effect of a piece of traditional media that we take note of is far larger.

In the old days, I'd tell my 5 closest friends, and maybe one of them would be inspired and tell one other person. Only the truly viral ideas would spread like wildfire. Today, spreading the message to 500 friends is easier (bookmark it on stumbleupon/delicious, email it, put it on my facebook page). If the message is powerful, it has an easier time spreading now than ever before.

This shows that even those entrenched in traditional media, like newspaper ads, need to take note of the incredible social movement we have on our hands. Their medium is changing, whether they know it or not. The first step is to always be listening.

Thanks, Rohit!

[Klaus Holzapfel]

Nice analysis. I am just wondering when we will really start to pay by the weight we are adding to the flight.
Jockeys will be the next sales people;-)

[Kim Ethridge]

Rohit -
I forwarded this post to coworkers in my communications and PR department to help them better understand why social media and social networking is important. It's very challenging to get folks who don't participate in this new Web 2.0 medium to understand what it is, how it works, and why it's important. Your post did just that.

So far, I think of shared 3 or 4 of your posts with our team, all for the same reason. Keep it up -- I look forward to whatever you're writing next!

[Vectorpedia(Rick)]

Pay by weight is an excellent idea..............I think the grocery stores should start this program...........

[oMan]

'Nice Tail' Did you know? air traffic controllers at JFK used to call 'Blue Nose' niner zero the Malev flight