British Airways welcomes passengers and Paralympic athletes arriving for London 2012 through Heathrow with huge images of ParalympicGB star athlete Shelly Woods projected on to a BA engineering hangar.
The projections, which can be seen by those in planes as they touch down at Heathrow, include the tagline ‘Welcome to our manor’ (along with the Twitter hashtag #HomeAdvantage).
Woods, a British Airways Paralympic brand ambassador is from Lancashire. A long and middle distance racer, who started using a wheelchair at the age of 11 after a heavy fall which injured her spinal cord, she compete on the track in both the 1500 and 5000 meters and is also a half and full marathon winner with title ranging from The Great North Run to The London Marathon
‘The support from the home crowd at the Olympic Games was absolutely terrific and really helped to spur Team GB on to glory,’ says Woods. ‘It will be really important to all of us competing in the Paralympic Games too.’
This Paralympic evolution of the airline’s Games Home Advantage activation, which also included a giant Jess Ennis image visible from the air to those on the final landing approach to the airport (see previous case study), also includes press and outdoor work. It also ties in with BA’s ‘Don’t Fly’ and ‘Post London 2012 Sale’ initiatives.
The projected image, by Drive Productions, is 58 metres by 18 metres (the size of 24 London double decker buses) and is created by using powerful lumen projectors.
The images were first unveiled on 22 and 23 August – which were the two busiest days for international athletes arriving for the Paralympic Games.
An official sponsor of both the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, BA is providing flights to and from the Games (as well as some training trips too) for athletes (and families) taking part in 20 Paralympic sports.
‘We are very excited about the Paralympic Games and wanted to give the athletes an extra boost in the run up to them,’ says British Airways sponsorship manager Luisa Fernandez. ‘We hope this celebratory message does just that.’
The airline is also running a Twitter-led Paralympic ticket competition by driving retweets of a promotional tweet through @British_Airways
Comment:
Tier One sponsor BA, one of the first partners to sign up for London 2012, was also one of the first brands to activative around the Olympics. Its work began back with its ‘Great Britain’s’ initiative and continued through the Games with its tongue-in-cheek ad campaign encouraging Brits to stay in the UK during London 2012 to support Team GB.
This campaign, by Bartle Bogle Hegarty, has neatly dovetailed directly in to thee brand’s Paralympic activation.
Also, during the Paralympics themselves, the airline will continue to host Park Live at the Olympic Park. This is a giant viewing site where fans can come together and get behind GB athletes while watching all the action on Europe’s largest outdoor LED screen.
More than 400,000 fans visited Park Live during the Olympic Games and this will continue through the Paralympics, especially now that LOCOG have released 100,000 Park-only Paralympic tickets because of the high demand.
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