This year KLM is celebrating its 100th anniversary. For the last 14 years (right from the start) it has been in the top of the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. The brand is positioned in the brown-orange section of the NeedScope ellipse and wants to be seen as the most customer-centric European network carrier.

Based on the brown-orange and customer-centric starting points, for quite some time KLM communications focused on the fact that the airline truly cares for its passengers and for people in general. After a range of very successful brand activations around this theme, client asked us to develop a campaign that would take the message that KLM truly cares for people to the next level. Objectives: a) generate maximum brand awareness, b) generate maximum brand sympathy in all markets the brand operates in, with a focus on their key markets.

An airline that celebrates its 100th anniversary cannot deny the sustainability topic. This applies even more to KLM. If it truly cares for people, it must care for our world. We devised KLM Fly Responsibly: a PR campaign and brand activation. Better yet: it was a commitment of our client to speed up progress towards a more sustainable future for aviation. Fly Responsibly symbolises a new mentality: the responsibility we should all have for our planet.KLM already made considerable progress in making their business more sustainable, but for more substantial progress joint action was/is needed. We encouraged KLM to step into the spotlight, reach out to all stakeholders in the aviation industry – competitors, manufacturers etc. – and invite them to work together for creating a more sustainable future. In addition to this, KLM Fly Responsibly reaches out to air travellers, asks them to consider their responsibility and to do

KLM has long been a leader when it comes to sustainability, but it did not claim this role publicly. Simply celebrating KLM’s 100th year anniversary without addressing the topic was unthinkable. We felt KLM was in the position to credibly claim the role as industry leader in sustainability. If it truly cared, it had to open up and reach out to all stakeholders. To share all its sustainability knowledge and best practices. To ask everyone to consider their responsibility. To activate everyone to contribute.

Key message: KLM has made substantial progress, but we now reach out and ask all to do their bit and work together for speeding up progress in sustainable aviation.

Hence, we targeted both decision makers (in the aviation industry and beyond) and consumers around the world, with a focus on KLM’s key markets.

We kicked off with an open letter to the world in global newspapers. KLM invited all parties to work together and make free use of its sustainability expertise and tools. KLM open-sourced its CO2 compensation service that can be implemented in other airlines’ booking tools.

It also asked all readers to carefully consider their travel plans. Like travelling by train, replacing face-to-face meetings with video calls and compensating their CO2 emissions within the KLM booking tool.

From now on the Fly Responsibly logo will be used in all KLM communication and we asked other airlines to join us.

The campaign was supported by a platform, a PR video that was created without CO2 emissions, billboards at airports, in-flight films, email and in KLM’s booking tool.

The initiative was further pushed in KLM’s social channels and owned media. Even in sales messages.

KLM Fly Responsibly generated tons of free publicity, receiving 1.1 billion earned media impressions. Over 2100 articles were written, representing a reach of many millions and a calculated media value of €30 million up to October 11 (and still counting). Quote from Forbes Magazine (July): ‘The “Fly Responsibly” campaign is very powerful. KLM positions itself as a champion of sustainable travel, anticipating competitors and catching flight-shamers off-guard.’

The response was 85% positive.

Fly Responsibly continues to be featured in the news and competitors are responding. For example: British Airways and Air France have committed to compensating all CO2 emissions on domestic flights from January 2020.

During the Climate Week in NYC, KLM was invited by the United Nations to talk about the initiative.

The use of KLM’s CO2 compensation tool by KLM ticket buyers increased by over 300% (!) during a KLM sales campaign in September.