Cathay Pacific Airways partners with leading international brands, creating online campaigns that encourage users to interact with the ads.

All marketers wishing to delve into international should learn from Cathay Pacific Airway's online brand-building techniques. The airline's approach towards reaching its audience by building online partnerships with leading brands such as Universal McCann, CNN, Yahoo! and ZUJI.com has made it one of the major online marketers in Hong Kong and across the Asia Pacific region.

It is no surprise why earlier this year Cathay Pacific was named Hong Kong’s leading company by the Asian Wall Street Journal in its annual “The Asian Wall Street Journal 200.” Additionally, just last week, Cathay Pacific received two awards in the Yahoo! Emotive Brand Awards for 2004-2005. The airline carried off the Top Emotive Brand award in the Airline category, and was one of seven companies named overall Top Emotive Brand winners. The Yahoo! Emotive Brand Awards polls the portal's Hong Kong users on brands that most appeal to them. Some 184 companies across 17 categories were nominated. More than 700,000 people voted online.

Cathay Pacific and Universal McCann Asia Pacific

In September 2004, Cathay Pacific along with its advertising agency of record, Universal McCann Asia Pacific, developed a comprehensive integrated media plan for a new branding campaign called “People & Service.” The online component allowed Cathay Pacific to engage users in a way that is not possible for print, TV or radio. According to Catherine Ho, senior communications planner on the Cathay Pacific Central Team, Universal McCann Asia Pacific, “The benefit of online for this campaign is that it allowed us to ‘dial up’ audience interaction, which included a competition on the little things that Cathay Pacific has done for you in addition to running integrated branding communications online.”

It is evident that the campaign was successful due to its degree of interactivity. For the “People & Service” campaign, rich media ads ran on all major Hong Kong portals, including atnext.com, orisun.com and msn.com.hk. According to Ho, there was a high degree of acceptance of the rich media creative:

• More than 99 percent of viewers watched the ad without closing it
• The ad was viewed completely by the audience (ad duration was about nine seconds)
• Viewers interacted with the ad and used one-third of the display time to play with it
• Post-impression conversions proved 50 percent more effective than the standard online ad

Cathay Pacific and ZUJI.com

Earlier this year, Cathay Pacific partnered with ZUJI.com, Asia Pacific’s most comprehensive online travel portal. This partnership allows Cathay Pacific’s services to be marketed to ZUJI’s online member base exceeding one million travelers, and to advertise in countries such as Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea and Australia, as well as other markets. Additionally, ZUJI offers marketers a wide array of opportunities to reach more than 28 million internet users throughout Asia Pacific, which means that Cathay Pacific has an online presence on the most visited portals on the World Wide Web in each ZUJI market, including (as of November 2004):

• Yahoo! (in Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore and Korea)
• MSN (in Singapore and Korea)
• ninemsn “Getaway Travel” (the #1 online portal in Australia)
• AsiaOne (a premier news portal in Singapore)
• Expat Express (in Singapore)
• Taiwan Top Tours (part of the China Times' Travel Service section for Taiwan domestic itineraries)
• Naver.com (in Korea)
• Korean Air (in Korea, providing for ‘Honeymoon’ and ‘Woman’ travel portals

Cathay Pacific and CNN

To coincide with the airline's launch of the only twice-daily direct service from Hong Kong to New York in May 2004, Cathay Pacific and CNN teamed up for an exclusive 'Be the first to know' online marketing program. Targeting business travelers in the Asia Pacific, the 'Be the first to know' online contest offered participants a chance to win a unique trip to New York.

According to William Hsu, vice president of CNN advertising sales, Asia Pacific: ”Cathay Pacific is one of our longest-standing media partners in Asia. With our solid understanding of their business and marketing objectives, we were able to add a new dimension with this targeted online program to reach the frequent business travelers in the optimum environment of CNN's online properties.”

Cathay Pacific and Yahoo! Canada

In July 1998. Cathay Pacific teamed up with Yahoo! Canada to develop an interactive traffic-building promotion. Yahoo! Canada and Cathay Pacific Airways developed a customized, interactive contest, giving Yahoo! Canada users the chance to win the trip of a lifetime -- a month-long adventure for two to 18 selected Asian cities. The contest was designed to promote and draw qualified consumers to Cathay Pacific's new CyberTraveler™ online travel newsletter, which offers timely information on traveling in Asia, exclusive low fares, and promotions to hundreds of registered users throughout Canada.

"Cathay Pacific's Canadian CyberTraveler program is a new online initiative," says Peter Langslow, V.P. Canada of Cathay Pacific. "The customized, online promotion with Yahoo! Canada offers us an ideal solution to attract Canadian travelers and internet users of all ages. Cathay Pacific leads the way in service excellence and schedule frequency to Asia from Toronto and Vancouver, and now we have our product in front of Yahoo! Canada's vast audience."

It is evident that Cathay Pacific is committed to the online channel. By continuing to partner with top leading international brands and creating online campaigns that encourage users to interact with the ads, Cathay Pacific is more than just an airline; it is a perfect example of what a brand marketer in the internet generation should be.

Elizabeth M. Lloyd is the Director of Corporate Marketing for Netblue, Inc., an online direct marketing company based in Silicon Valley. Previously, Lloyd was the director of marketing for opt-in email provider, NetCreations, in New York City. Prior to NetCreations, Lloyd was responsible for the PR department of ValueClick, Inc.