Flight Centre tests longer format social media to attract new viewers
Targeting children and their parents via Alphabet’s YouTube has resulted in Flight Centre seeing an 88% increase in their channel’s total subscribers.
‘Kids Talk’ is the brand’s first concentrated step into the channel with multiple travel-targeted series scheduled for 2023 based on the initial success of kids sharing their views on travel, culture and holidays.
The series is part of wider brand strategy for Flight Centre focused on the world’s second biggest search engine and entertainment platform. The investment follows the amalgamation of the brand’s five ‘regional’ YouTube channels (Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the UK and Canada) into the single global channel in mid-2022.
Before the series launched Flight Centre had 4,776 subscribers to its channel. Post the series, it boasts more than 9,000.
According to Flight Centre chief marketing officer, Clinton Hearne, YouTube is the ideal platform to increase brand awareness.
Clinton Hearne
“YouTube is perfectly suited to focus on exactly what traveller customers need and want – travel hacks, tips, destination guides and inspiring stories,” he told Mumbrella.
Clinton Hern “This longer form video content, compared to short-form TikToks or Instagram Reels allows Flight Centre to create something with a bit of wow factor. It also showcases Flight Centre’s irreverent brand personality, whereby we take our customer’s travel seriously but don’t take ourselves too seriously.”
By January 2023, just a few months after launch of the series the Flight Centre YouTube channel was receiving 20,832 views, equating to a 22% increase month-on-month.
The idea for the series was to capture the “innocent and wonderfully simple” view children have of the world, to take a step back and look at it all through a child’s point of view.
The top performing episode to date on the channel was ‘Where does pizza come from?’ with nearly 7,000 views as of late January.
Got a tip?
Olivia Kruimel is the managing editor at Mumbrella. She has more than 15 years of experience in journalism, communications and marketing. Her journalism career began at Fairfax Media (now part of Nine) and includes various B2B publications such as B&T, Travel Today and ALB. As a marketer Olivia has worked for Standard Chartered and various global law firms.
Linkedin
Have your say