To further the brands' already existing Only in South America campaign, LAN Airlines & TAM Airlines launched the @onlyinsouthamerica Instagram account, its first join social media profile since the airline merger, and an influencer series designed to highlight the wonders found only in their regio - South America.
The brands partnered with influential U.S. bloggers with a robust social media following to create authentic, compelling, first-hand content inspired by the region to share with their audiences. With a budget of $38,000, the LAN and TAM team also identified travel partners who provided accommodation, tours and more, that would have otherwise cost in retail value over $200,000.
The key objectives of the program included the following: - Inspire travel to South America from North America (Key destinations for LAN and TAM) - Generate User Generated Content through various social media channels about these trips through the hashtag#OnlyInSouthAmerica - Engage with consumers so that they actively interact during and after trips with the airlines and bloggers' social media channels - Leverage the blogger's to create compelling content, photo and video footage to be used in the airilnes' Only in South America micro-site and social accounts, such as Instagram
Since the program launched, the following results were achieved in 2014:
LAN Airlines and TAM Airlines were not only able to be a part of a conversation on Instagram quickly upon joining the platform, but they also influenced and switched the sentiment of the #OnlyInSouthAmerica hashtag from negative to positive, which is no easy feat for large brands. For this reason, they deserve to win the best use of a hashtag Shorty Award.
The Background Story on #OnlyInSouthAmerica
LAN and TAM knew that an influencer program without a hashtag would be a missed opportunity, and therefore began to brainstorm what hashtag for the @onlyinsouthamerica Instagram account should be. It had to be something encouraging for the influencers and their followers to use. It had to be something that didn't necessarily have to change should the brands change names.
The most evident option was #OnlyInSouthAmerica, however this hashtag already existed on Instagram and Twitter, and although there were very few images and posts, they all had negative sentiment with images and comments of South America that were not enticing or geared to inspire travel to the region. Furthermore, the hashtag did not include their brands in the name - Perhaps users would use it, and yet they did not associate it with the airlines. Despite the hashtag's negative history, after much analysis, it was decided by the brands to take the risk and use #onlyinsouthamerica, and encourage the influencers to use it to highlight positive and travel dream list inspiring content, with the goal of having users follow the lead and do the same.
The results were fantastic, switching the sentiment of the hashtag from negative to almost 100% positive for images shared after the program launched, and with users clearly stating they know it is LAN and TAM Airlines. Through the following influencers from different categories we were able to reach such results:
Instagram Users were inspired by the influencer's posts and began to publish not just pictures of current travels in real time with #OnlyInSouthAmerica, but also began to go back to old travel pictures to add the #OnlyInSouthAmerica hashtag to those as well.
