The brief was to help Widerøe keep as many customers as possible when Norwegian, Norway’s biggest airline, started operating at Torp regional airport. Norwegian have low fares and big planes, but offered only one 1 morning flight and 1 evening flight to each destination. Widerøe have smaller planes, but more frequent flights. The flexibility that comes with frequent flights is essenstial to business travellers, so that was our focus. To demonstrate this advantage, we invited everyone holding a ticket with Norwegian to change to any of Widerøe’s flights, as long as there were seats available.

In press releases, we announced that tickets with Norwegian now could be used to change to any of Widerøe’s frequent flights, as long as there were available seats. An infomercial was aired in paid and owned media later on, as the media are more reluctant to cover what they perceive as advertising. The offer lasted for the first 2 first months after Norwegian’s arrival. Immediately after the release, Widerøe’s extraordinary offer was all over the news. To that end, the advantages of traveling with Widerøe became the center of everyone’s attention during Norwegian’s first weeks of operation at Torp.

The offer was released on the first Monday morning after Norwegian had started operating, and lasted for 2 months. It was immediately picked up by all regional media, as well as the most significant national media, giving Widerøe the chance to elaborate on their advantage. It became a top story on NRK’s (Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, a government owned TV-station) evening news and in Dagens Næringsliv (Business Today, by far Norway’s biggest business paper). It was also widely spread in social media. A modest estimate indicates that the campaign reached more than half of the people living in the targeted area.