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16 Department of Aviation Marketing
The Key Account Managers at
Hamburg Airport show their faces
17
Dr Jörgen Kearsley’s team was thrilled. In front of around 650 guests and to great applause, the
Director of Aviation Marketing accepted a coveted trophy in Prague on 18 May. The trophy in question
was the Routes Marketing Award, presented at the European Routes Conference. Hamburg
Airport overcame Zürich, Vienna, Munich and Moscow to win the category of “Central and Eastern
Europe”. The jury’s reasoning: Hamburg Airport excelled with a whole row of innovative marketing
tools. The Routes conferences are the world’s leading contact fairs for airlines and airports.
New advertising motif with humour,
charm and, most of all, heads
Department of Aviation Marketing
Employees: 10
Director: Dr Jörgen Kearsley
Responsibility: The job of Aviation Marketing is to win new airlines for the Hamburg
market and to secure and/or expand the activities of airlines already operating here. The
department makes use of modern market research techniques and works together closely
with various bodies and individuals, including tourism associations, tour operators and
the travel managers of larger companies.
Project manager for the “Your Face in Hamburg” campaign and Deputy
Head of Aviation Marketing Gesa Zaremba: “We looked at the
relationship between airline customers and key account managers
from a new perspective. At heart, it is about personal likeability and
the resultant fun of working together. We have therefore adopted a
personal external image. In our new advertising campaign, we deli berately
show our faces.”
Three key account managers, Dr Jörgen Kearsley, Gesa Zaremba and
Alexandra Ringel, feature in the current campaign. With laptop and
notepad in hand and a friendly smile on their faces, they soar over
Hamburg on an inflatable A380. The motif illustrates, in a humourous
way, the competence of both the team and Hamburg as a center of
aviation. “Hamburg Airport is the first German airport to present such
a personal face to the outside world. This strategy clearly differentiates
Hamburg from other airports,” Director Jörgen Kearsley emphasises.
The animated advertising banner is prominently positioned on
the aviation networking websites anna.aero and routesonline.com.
It also features in the anna.aero newsletter, which is emailed to
10,000 recipients every week, as well as being on the back cover of
the Routes programmes for Routes Europe and World Routes, with
a total print run of 3,700 copies.
Maritime outfits at the Routes conferences in
Prague and Beijing
The differentiation from other airports was consistently followed
through in the team’s presentation at the Routes conferences in
Prague and Peking: all participants wore a “maritime uniform”, consisting
of a dark blue polo shirt with “Hamburg” printed on the back,
and white trousers. “This way, we stand out from the vast crowds of
suit-wearers without coming across as too casual, and we are clearly
recognisable as a team. We are also communicating the Hamburg
brand and its most important characteristic, the cosmopolitan waterside
city. At the same time, we can communicate such Hanseatic
virtues as dependability, internationalism and tradition, without appearing
stuffy or out-of-date,” says Gesa Zaremba. The large amount
of positive feedback from airline partners shows that this unusual,
likable approach is well-received.