Travel Opps: Southwest Airlines launches campaign with Wattpad (Score 50)

Sales Lead: Southwest Airlines just launched its inaugural brand film made with global creator community Tongal and web novel platform Wattpad.

• This is part of Southwest's larger "On the Rise" brand platform, which originally kicked off in 2017 and expanded in 2021 through a collaboration with Wattpad.
• The company will likely:
  • Continue pursuing collaborations
  • Keep rolling out work for this campaign
  • Continue increasing spend
  • Seek new agency partners amid a CMO search (more below)
• Target demographic:
  • A wide target demographic ranging from Gen-Z through Gen-X

Additional spending insights:

• Broadcast insights (TV ad creative spend, effectiveness, impressions, and performance)
  • YTD spend: So far this year, Southwest has spent approximately $5.2m on national TV commercials, 27% more than the approximately $4.1m spent within the same 2022 timeframe.
  • Last year: In 2022, the company spent around $19.3m on this channel after having spent 37% less, around $12.2m, in 2021.
  • 2023 ad programming: Southwest's 2023 commercials have targeted Gen-X watching shows such as NBA Basketball, The Cosby Show, Family Guy, For My Man, and A Different World.
• Digital and social insights (digital ad spend, effectiveness, impressions, and performance)
  • YTD spend: The company has allocated roughly $17.2m toward digital ads YTD, more than double the roughly $8.5m allocated by this point last year.
  • YTD data: Since the beginning of 2023, Southwest has earned ~2.5b digital impressions via Facebook (45%), Instagram (27%), Twitter (20%), YouTube (5%), desktop video (2%), and desktop display (1%) ads.
  • Last year: The airline's estimated full-year 2022 spend reached $27.7m, down 19% from that of $34.1m in 2021.
• Additional channel insights  
  • The company utilizes local broadcast, digital, radio, print, OOH, Google Ads, Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and online video (via Youtube.com and Youtube IOS) ads.
  • Southwest sponsors podcasts such as The Ramsey Show, FOX News Hourly Update, Thrivetime Show, Motley Foot Money, and the Joel Osteen Podcast.
  • The company invests in short-form DRTV.
    • It has rather highly network TV coverage and will likely launch a new campaign within the next 30 days or so.
    • Southwest's top TV networks include USA and MLB.

Additional agency insights:

• Opportunity: If you haven't yet done so, reach out soon to get on the radar of Ryan Green, whose role was expanded to chief commercial officer in October 2022.
  • ​​​​​​​Southwest does not seem to have yet found a new CMO to succeed him.
• Current agency roster:
  • ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Tongal: Agency partner (project-by-project since 2021)
  • GSD&M: Creative AOR
  • Spark Foundry: Media AOR
  • RPA: Digital AOR
  • Pan Up Productions: Creative agency partner
  • Pace Communications: Digital agency partner
  • Dieste: Multicultural agency partner
  • BVK: Multicultural agency partner

Insight Sources: Broadcast insights estimated by iSpot; digital spend insights estimated by Pathmatics; additional channel insights estimated by Vivvix; podcast insights by Podchaser; DRTV insights by Media Analytics.