A Sky full of Italy is the message behind Italian carrier ITA Airway’s new Search Bar brand campaign.
The new campaign is costing close to €10 million
The Italian airline’s campaign is in cooperation with Vmly&R and although the investment has not been disclosed, "it is close to double digits in millions of euro," said Giovanni Perosino, the carrier’s chief marketing officer. Of this approximate €10 million, “50% is destined for foreign markets. A little less than the figure for the first half of the year, which was strongly focused on the promotion of our intercontinental destinations, our strategic focus for 2023.”
“We are counting a lot on advance bookings”
ITA Airway’s campaign is aimed at boosting bookings for the winter season, but also anticipates summer 2024 “which is already on sale. We are counting a lot on advance bookings.” Regarding this summer’s figures: “We carried 4.2 million passengers, of which some 533,000 on intercontinental routes, which with 12 destinations, are our backbone. The average load factor was 84%, with peaks of 87% on long-haul flights, a new record high.”
Giovanni Perosino e Simona Maggini
A campaign that reaches out to intercontinental markets
The partnership with Google was decisive for the campaign – the search bar is the campaign's most distinctive and recognisable feature - with the web giant providing fundamental insight into the main foreign search trends for Italy. The campaign will be on a wide range of media, “mainly prime time television” for six weeks and focuses on long-haul markets. "The challenge is to conquer the world. We are already on air in Argentina and Brazil, and on 29 October we will launch new direct flights from Rio de Janiero to Rome Fiumicino; ITA’s twelfth intercontinental destination.”
Campaign launches in US and European cities
"From the end of September it will be the turn of the United States with campaign launches in New York, Boston, Washington, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Miami. In Europe, the markets involved will be Spain, France, London, Israel and Japan.” A second wave of the campaign is set for 15 October and a third for Christmas. 
A total of 2.7 billion global gross contacts
"We researched what the essence of Italianness means to the world, be it food and wine, style, design or hospitality," said Simona Maggini, ceo Vmly&R Italy. The target of the campaign is "300 million gross contacts in Italy, with 2,000 TV spots of which 60% on prime time; web and press planning and digital out-of-home with over 2,500 video clips. Globally, we are talking about 2.7 billion gross contacts, of which 300 million in Europe, 930 million in the USA and 600 million in South America as well as 520 million in Japan."
