Airports can be lonely places. Especially when you are travelling at Christmastime, a time for sharing, unity and togetherness.

KLM is in the business of bringing people together all around the world. What if it could already bring people together while they were still en route?

We installed a table for 20 at Schiphol airport, but it was 4.5 meters high, so people could not reach the Christmas dinner served on it. 20 stools surrounding the table were equipped with pressure sensors. With every traveller who sat down on a stool, the table was lowered a little.

Travellers were excited and started to work together to lower the table. People from all over the world (20 different nationalities) put their phones or books aside and enjoyed a very special Christmas dinner together. We filmed the event and shared the video –all about sharing, unity and togetherness– online right

In the busiest part of one of Europe’s biggest airports, we built a table you couldn’t miss. It was there during Christmas, giving every traveller that day the opportunity to use it and bond with fellow travellers. The table was decked with a Christmas dinner, towered 4.5 meters high, and was surrounded by 20 stools. Every time a person sat down on a stool, the table was lowered a bit, inviting strangers to work together. When the table had been lowered, 20 strangers bonded over a Christmas dinner. The people participating were real travellers, many of whom even stood in line to wait for their seat. A compilation of the day’s best moments was shared via KLM’s social channels just before Christmas. We concentrated all our PR efforts in a single week around Christmas. Budgets are confidential, but 80% of the results were accomplished through earned media effects.

In just a couple of days KLM’s Bonding Buffet video grew to be the most popular KLM online video ever. Within weeks it reached over 100 million (!) people worldwide, collected over 72 million views and was shared almost 500,000 times. Over 2 million people gave it a Like or a ‘Great’ (Big Like) and comments were almost exclusively very positive. Almost 80% of these results were accomplished via organic reach / earned media. Many national and international blogs picked up the video, most notably the International Business Times (Headline: “KLM’s incredible Bonding Buffet at Schiphol”) and 9GAG. Each and every editorial piece was positive about KLM’s initiative; media called it the very best Christmas campaign of the season.

The Promo & Activation Lions celebrate creativity that brings brands to life. Entries need to demonstrate ideas that generate interaction and showcase work where consumer participation in an activity serves to promote a product or service. This case does that in two ways: 1) consumers participating in the live event we initiated, and 2) consumers interacting with the content around the event (sharing, liking, commenting).

KLM wanted to reach as many people as possible, primarily people who take one or more flights a year. People from different cultures, living all over the world.

We created a heart-warming social video around a surprise buffet at Schiphol airport. A message about unity and sharing, which tied in with both the festive season spirit and KLM’s brand purpose. A message that just about anyone in the world would like to engage with, and would like to share, at the end of a year full of turmoil.

Because of KLM’s ambition to reach as many people as possible worldwide, we decided to go for a social video people would love to share. We sent a press release to media that focus on digital trends and seeded the video on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. We concentrated all our efforts in a single week around Christmas.

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines is in the business of bringing people together: it unites families, friends and other relations all over the world.

At the end of a year with much turbulence in this world, KLM wanted to use the days around Christmas to communicate a message of unity, togetherness and sharing. A message that would touch people, create sympathy for the brand and contribute to KLM’s brand purpose “Moving your world by creating memorable experiences”. KLM asked agency to create this message. As always it asked us to develop a story that would revolve around real people, not actors. Since Christmastime is one of the busiest times of year for the airline, the realisation of the concept could not have too many logistical implications for them. KLM would need all hands to secure smooth running of their operations at this time of year.