What it had to solve
Break through China's media clutter with a social conversation, leveraging travel platforms' content hubs and influencer networks end to end, from creative concept to media planning, buying and execution.
The idea
A public vote across China's biggest travel platforms sent three influencer couples racing to win a wedding at 35,000 feet on a Cathay Dragon flight.
How it works
Films of couples in wedding gowns and suits running through Chinese streets and airports; public voting for the favourite couple via partnerships with Ctrip, Mafengwo and Qyer; the winning couple's wedding set on a Cathay Dragon flight on 6 January, with voters in with a chance to attend; supported by a website, digital media, social and PR.
What it did
Campaign hashtag #空中婚礼_为爱翱翔# hit No. 2 on Weibo's Travel Hot Topic Board organically on day two and passed 25 million reads in the first week.
Background
When Dragonair was rebranded as Cathay Dragon in 2016 — symbolising a closer relationship with Cathay Pacific — McCann Hong Kong and MRM//McCann Shanghai marked it with 'Marriage in the Air', a campaign that put the new brand relationship literally in the air: a competition in which three Chinese travel-influencer couples tried to outdo each other for the chance to wed at 35,000 feet on a Cathay Dragon flight.
The campaign launched that November with videos of the couples in wedding gowns and suits running through streets and airports across China, inviting the public to vote for their favourite couple. Voting ran in partnership with three of China's largest travel platforms — Ctrip, Mafengwo and Qyer — whose content hubs and influencer networks gave the campaign targeted reach in an environment where young Chinese consumers were already engaged. Voters for the winning couple also got a chance to attend the wedding, set for 6 January.
It worked as conversation, not just reach: the campaign hashtag #空中婚礼_为爱翱翔# hit No. 2 on Weibo's Travel Hot Topic Board organically on its second day, and hashtag posts passed 25 million reads within the first week. Grace Cheung, Cathay Pacific's manager of global marketing communications, called it the airline's first partnership of this nature and scale with Chinese travel platforms and influencers; McCann ECD Martin Lever said the brief was 'to create a social conversation that placed our client's brand at the centre of something meaningful in people's lives'.
Why it lands
A rebrand announcement is news nobody attends; a wedding contest made the new Cathay Dragon name the setting of a story people followed.
China's travel platforms owned the audience's trust and content habits, so embedding the vote there beat shouting from brand channels.
Influencer couples supplied the content engine — gowns, airports, competition — that a media budget alone could not.
Letting voters win seats at the wedding converted passive reach into personal stake and sharing.
What you can take
Rebranding a sibling brand? Give consumers a stake — a vote that might win them a seat at the wedding turns awareness into participation.
Since then
The winning couple's mid-air wedding was set for 6 January 2017, with the campaign running across website, digital, social and PR through late 2016; LBB's report carried no post-campaign brand tracking.
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