United #TeamUSA Spots Turn Athletes & Employees Into Superheroes For Winter Olympic Work

Mid January saw Team USA airline partner United Airlines debut its Winter Olympic ‘Superheroes’ advertising campaign ahead of PyeongChang 2018.

While the work, developed with United’s agency of record McGarryBowen New York, is unfolding at United airports and other out-of-home spaces, as well as on social media, the activation is spearheaded by a series of new spots that turn both US team stars and United employees into superheroes.

These videos began rolling out on the airline’s social platforms from 11 January, but the lead spots will debut on television during the 9 February opening ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games.

The campaign’s central creative idea was inspired by the superheroes celebrated in comics and cinemas, the movies and the fun content pieces aim to present US Olympians and United employees as superheroes capable of incredible, superhuman athletic feats.

The work was initially teased socially a week ahead of the core campaign roll out.

The main body of work was launched with a hero (no pun intended) 30-second spot called ‘To South Korea’,

which was accompanied by a another lead spot called ‘They Can Fly’.

These were supported by a series of videos posted on the airline’s digital and social platforms: including two behind-the-scenes style spots,

plus further creative pieces such as ‘What makes you feel like a hero?’

and ‘What would your super power be’,

and ‘Middle Seat’.

Plus, each of the athletes featured in the spots has been given a superhero name: such as Nathan Chen’s ‘King Quad’ and their own short ‘Origin Story’ spot.

While the smartest part of United’s campaign is the way it connects the US Olympians to the United Airlines’ staff themselves: these employees are also shown performing superhero feats to make sure their passengers (including Team USA Olympians) get safely and comfortable to their desired destinations.

“The tie between superheroes and Olympic athletes is clear — they are ‘regular’ people who use their exceptional talents to accomplish the incredible,” explained United Airlines marketing VP Mark Krolick.

“For close to four decades, our employees have called upon their unique skills — transporting hundreds of thousands of customers, while working in rapidly changing weather conditions and providing exceptional service — to give the ‘power of flight’ to Team USA athletes, getting them to competitions around the globe.”

Thus, some United employees also get superhero names: such as flight attendant Karla Gonzales De La Torre becoming ‘Winged Wonder’ and customer service rep Lemont Penn being renamed ‘Departicus’, while pilot Nancy Barteczko is referred to as ‘Sky Runner’.

Other pillars of the activation range from in airport imagery to Instagram Stories.

We're in NYC to celebrate the Olympic Winter Games 2018 and our partnership with @TeamUSA. Check out our Instagram story to see #TeamUnited transform into something…super pic.twitter.com/7IEmtoqzMq

— United Airlines (@united) January 18, 2018

To ensure the superhero theme was creatively executed in appropaite manner, McGarryBowen worked with Hollywood director Martin Campbell and composer Brian Tyler (who wrote the music for the Avengers and Iron Man movies).

Comment:

United Airlines has sponsored the United States Olympic team for 38 years: transporting athletes (and equipment) all around the world.

Of course, the Chicago-based carrier’s creative idea of activating a sports sponsorship through a super heroes theme isn’t a new one: indeed example of campaigns taking a similar approach have ranged from Under Armour’s Andy Murray cartoon campaign (see case study), Gatorade’s athlete ambassador work with DC Comics (see case study), and Samsung turning Messi into Ironman (see case study), to HSBC’s World Golf Championship work (see our 2017 and 2016 case studies).

But what we like about this United campaign is that it has ‘superheroed’ some of its staff as well as its sports ambassadors.

Which must be positive for internal employee relations and possibly even recruitment.

Now what would our super power be…..?

Links:

United

http://unitedhub.com/

https://www.youtube.com/user/united/videos

https://www.facebook.com/United

https://twitter.com/united

https://www.instagram.com/united/#

McGarryBowen

http://www.mcgarrybowen.com/

United States Olympic Committee

https://www.teamusa.org/

https://twitter.com/TeamUSA