Transat’s new communication platform “Sun for everyone” was launched in September 2014. Its objective is to improve consumer perception with respect to the price competitiveness of the brand.

Target: The smart, savvy bargain hunter who monitors the market on a daily basis. Someone who subscribes to travel alert sites. Someone who is the go-to in his or her circle of friends and whose voice carries weight. Someone who can convince others that “this is a good deal!”.

We decided to make a big splash by putting flights centre stage during the pinnacle of cyber events: Cyber Monday (the Monday following the famous/infamous Black Friday). Thus, the first Twitter auction was born!

The Auction was announced just 48 hours in advance. Participants were invited to visit transatsunauction.ca to place their bids via Twitter. Each auction lasted 30 minutes and took place in real time. A great deal of thought went into the mechanic and developing all of the necessary tools from A to Z:

1. The creation of a promotional site

2. The promotion of the event through Facebook and Twitter, with the help of banners and bloggers

3. An internal team to respond to questions from users and monitor events in real time

4. Tag unique URLs for analytical monitoring

- 82,000 unique visitors

- 6 million impressions

- 47,300 bids in 12 hours

- More than 150% the normal traffic on Air Transat’s website

Each of these auctions, generating a unique Tweet, allowed us to attain thousands of additional Twitter followers and expand the reach of the campaign. Social networks and blogs combined to generate almost 50% of the referral traffic.