British Airways have spent 4 years redesigning their First Class offering.

However, BA don’t do overt displays of ostentatious luxury. Nor is the typical ‘First’ passenger into gold taps and marble fittings. The problem we faced was that you only truly appreciate just how good the new ‘First’ cabin is when you see every detail.

Our brief was to create a communication piece for these high value customers that would draw their eye to the small but important aspects of the new cabin and thereby help keep First Class passengers flying in First Class.

The creative execution involved targeting this exclusive group with a piece created with as much care and attention to detail as ‘First’ itself.

At first glance it appears to be a book of photographs, with no copy in it at all. You are drawn to use the magnifying glass that is set into the front cover. This reveals, in each spread, the hidden details and the story behind them.

The tone of the piece is quite playful, as we want to engage and entertain as well as inform. There are even 5,200 Concordes for the reader to find.

The piece was sent to a handpicked group of 468 of BA’s First Class customers.

As this piece is primarily for retention as opposed to sales, it is not possible to directly attribute any results due to lack of a response mechanism. However, we do know that between receiving the book in October 2011 and February 2012, 1,294 bookings were made by this group; between 2-3 each in a 4-month period.