Up to seven bloggers will be invited on the inaugural flight and to write about their #ShanghaiStory and #ShanghaiAdventure and two winners will win free flights on Spring Airlines for a year.
Another marketing tactic it will deploy to promote the Shanghai-Singapore route is its “matchmaking” programme – the idea being that it will invite a group of single men and women to fly from Shanghai to Singapore and during the flight and in-destination, games are played to enable the perfect match to be found.
“This is very popular in Shanghai,” said Nikki Zhang, general manager of marketing centre. “People don’t have time to find their matches and they hope they can meet Ms or Mr Right on their travels.”
The airline introduced mile-high matchmaking last December. The first inflight matchmaking event, on a flight from Shanghai to Kunming, attracted 10 men and 10 women, with the men aged up to 39 and the women up to 25. Three matches were made on the trip and apparently one couple is still together, said Zhang.
Similarly on another matchmaking flight to Taiwan on March 14, three matches were made. “They become our friends on WeChat and they tell us about what they are doing and if they are still together,” she said. Spring has 500,000 members on WeChat.
It is considering holding a similar matchmaking flight for single men and women in Singapore to find their match inflight but will adapt the programme to local market needs.
In coming into the Singapore market, the airline, which has been touted as a model of success in China’s highly competitive aviation market, knows it’s got a tough battle on its hands.
While it is only up against Singapore Airlines and China Eastern Airlines, the only two carriers on the route currently, it’s coming into Singapore, a highly competitive hub for low cost airlines and a very small market of four million travel-savvy and demanding customers.
At five hours, too, the flight is long enough for customers to consider whether they want to fly low cost or stay with a known and trusted entity like SIA – especially if the air fare differential may not be big enough. What it has on its side is its experience with Shanghai – that it knows the city better than anyone else – and it is promoting the fact that its flights will be fun, cheap and are well-timed.
To kick off the flights, Spring is offering 20 zero-priced tickets per flight between April 25 and April 30 – a total of 100 free seats. The rest will be available from RMB399 excluding taxes.
Singapore is Spring’s fifth international country, after Thailand, Japan, South Korea and Vietnam. Unlike the other flights which are more leisure-oriented, it is pitching for a slice of the business traffic between Singapore and Shanghai.
Spring is known for its heavy use of social media and digital marketing efforts to drive direct website sales, which accounts for 85% of all sales. It is also putting emphasis on mobile as it has seen sales through its mobile channel jump from eight percent to 50% last year, according to Jonathan Hutt, deputy GM strategy/international brand manager, speaking at an airline conference last year.
In Singapore, however, it is understood that it will work with traditional travel agents as well as use online marketing efforts to drive brand awareness and website sales. It recognizes that its brand awareness is low in Singapore and while it has an active Facebook presence in Thailand, Cambodia Taiwan and Hong Kong, its reach is still limited in Singapore.
