As It Happens: APEX MultiMedia Market 2017 Education Day
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APEX MultiMedia Market Education Day is underway in Berlin. Today, we’ll hear from the industry’s innovative minds on topics ranging from closed captioning and licensing to social media and digitalization.
The Next Generation of Qatar Airways’ Oryx One
Presented by: Sonali Amarasingham, manager, IFE Content, Global, Qatar Airways
When Qatar Airways decided to revamp its in-flight entertainment interface, the airline looked outside of the industry. The refreshed Oryx One feels familiar to the mobile experience with high-impact images, a scrolling action to browse movies and music, a separate, more colourful interface for kids’ content and a landing page that changes depending on where a flight is destined to land. “We wanted it to be clean, minimal, easy to navigate,” said Sonali Amarasingham, manager, IFE Content, Global, Qatar Airways, adding that it was important for the airline to have a GUI that was easy to update to keep the IFE experience dynamic. Qatar Airways expects to complete the rollout of the next-generation Oryx One later this year.
Shaping the Future of Passenger Experience From First Search Forward
Presented by: Massimo Pascotto, head of Innovation and Digital Solutions, SAS
It’s only been one year since SAS opened SAS Lab, an innovation lab designed to test and develop digital concepts and technologies that the airline believes will take its flying experience to new heights. Already in that time, many exciting customer-centric applications and prototypes have emerged from the lab. Using a short, 3-step development cycle (beginning with discovery, followed by proof of concept and finally incubation), the SAS Lab team has experimented with several different wearable technologies, an electronic bag tag using RFID and EBT flexible display technology, palm scanning technology with biometric token generation, chat bots, Google’s Alexa home assistant and practical favorites like an online flight award calendar that demystifies booking travel using loyalty points. SAS has invested 50 million euros in digitalization in recent years and doubled online revenue over the same period.
A Human Approach Supported by Technology
Presented by: Christiaan van de Koppel, social commerce manager, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines
What’s the secret sauce to KLM’s social media strategy? A hybrid of artificial intelligence and good old human touch. “If we combine those two, we can answer the ever-changing expectations of our customers,” says Christiaan van de Koppel, social commerce manager at KLM. For the airline that’s been quick to integrate social media with customer service, enabling its passengers to speak in emojis or extending its customer service to Facebook Messenger has made economical sense. Customer engagement spiked when the airline opened up a channel for one-on-one conversations with its passengers. “We have been active in every stage of the customer journey,” van de Koppel says. “This actually generates a lot of money.”
APEX and the Official Airline Ratings„¢
Presented by: Luke Jones, senior business development manager, TripIt, ExpenseIt, and Concur Platform
The APEX Official Airline Ratings„¢ passenger satisfaction polls are proving popular among airline passengers who use the TripIt travel app. According to Luke Jones, senior business development manager at TripIt, between 30 and 40 percent of passengers who use TripIt are rating their experience when prompted in the app after flying with an APEX member airline.
TripIt is now prompting all passengers on journeys with APEX member airlines to participate in the APEX Official Airline Ratings„¢, whereas in previous months only select passengers were targeted. This ramp-up of the program means that TripIt, APEX and member airlines can expect to be flooded with far greater data volumes than in past months, which will generate richer overall insights.
“Travelers want to give their feedback. They want their voice to be heard and they care about the in-flight experience,” said Jones. “[Airlines] can really get to some granular insights and takeaways as to how [their] in-flight experience has been changing.”
IFE Audio 2.0: American Airlines and St. Lucia
Presented by: Megan Worley, product manager, In-Flight Entertainment and Content, American Airlines
When American Airlines took its in-flight entertainment experience beyond the screen with an album release from electro-pop group St. Lucia, passenger engagement soared. “Usage data spiked,” says Megan Worley, product manager, Inflight Entertainment and Content for the airline. “It was great for our passengers and our partners were happy as well.” The campaign included an IFE playlist takeover and a DJ set performed by the band at John F. Kennedy International Airport – travelers were delighted. “Programs like these are really cool for us to tap into the millennial generation,” Worley says. When asked whether another IFE campaign was in the works, Worely said, American Airlines is not aiming for a plug-and-play solution so, expect “something bigger.”
Millennials & TV: Big Appetites, Little Patience
Presented by: Charles Dawes, senior director, International Marketing, TiVo
Trying to engage with millennial travelers through content? It can be a tricky task, but by working with entertainment experts like TiVo, airlines can develop strategies and technologies to overcome obstacles to content discovery and combat content infidelity. According to TiVo, the average US millennial will blast through upwards of 6 hours of content each day and 52 percent admitted they will stay up way too late to finish a good program. However, TiVo’s research also shows that 54 percent of millennials will simply stop watching content they like (this is also known as ‘show dumping’) if it becomes too difficult to access. And they won’t stay faithful to a content search and delivery system that doesn’t serve up or suggest things they want to see. “We’ve moved to giving people more access to more and more content,” explained Charles Dawes, senior director of International Marketing at TiVo. “But the systems we use to present it haven’t really kept pace in being able to expose the right content to the right people.” Watch APEX Media’s interview with Charles Dawes here.
How to Build Deep Relationships With Customers Through Content
Presented by: James Newman, market executive, PressReader
While Netflix and Spotify subscriptions were on the rise, video rentals and CD sales plummeted. According to James Newman, market executive, PressReader, a similar trend is happening in print. Actually, he says, “this change has already happened. Passengers expect the same kind of choice,” he says, speaking of the streaming platforms, which offer an endless selection of content. Over the next three years, PressReader will be adding 9,000 Chinese publications that will be exclusive to their platform. “The great depth and sheer ethnicity of the traveling public means passengers want to consume what they want, when they want, in their own language,” Newman says.
Design for an Interactive and Engaging Experience
The panel session at Multimedia Market 2017’s Education Day saw four interactive design experts debating the complex topic of good design for digital experiences across a variety of airline touchpoints. Here are their positions:
Shankar Velusamy, CTO, Ackila, Inc.
Airlines tend to focus heavily on making the experience very consistent across all touchpoints and IFE-mixed system fleets, but sometimes they don’t keep the limitations of hardware in mind when designing a user interface (UI). They need to get developers involved as early in the process as possible to understand this and avoid re-work.
Henrik Larsson, lead UX designer, Tactel
The real trick is creating a UI design that provides a personalized service, but that also collects “data points” to help the airline make ongoing improvements to that personal service. Think about how Amazon remembers what was in your shopping bag if you log off and back on later. We should work more on this because passengers will very soon expect personalized content delivered to them based on previously selected settings and viewing habits.
David Vogel, executive user experience director, AKQA
Figure out where you should play and where you shouldn’t play. In one respect [making your own] content can be helpful and drive sales if you inspire people, but at the same time you’re in a big field with a lot of other players who potentially do it much better than you.
Derek Ellis, chief creative officer and co-founder, Massive
Airline brand should be evident in the DNA of all the digital touchpoints across your passenger experience and this will naturally cause your IFE to stand out from the crowd. System intelligence is the next big thing. Contextual awareness will create experiences that cater to customer needs.
Opportunities and Challenges With Music on Board
Presented by: Steve Harvey, head of Audio, Global Eagle Entertainment
Over the past three years, Global Eagle Entertainment has paid out $45 million in settlement claims because, “as a company, we didn’t take music licensing as seriously as we should have,” said Steve Harvey, vice-president, Sales, GEE. The content service provider is turning that attitude around by taking the proper legal measures and investing in direct licenses with music publishers. Harvey talked about the business models for licensing movies and music – they’re not the same – and shared one of the lessons GEE has learned. “We’ve been told as a company that, anything we put on board an aircraft has to be properly, legally licensed. We can’t do it on a wing and a prayer,” he said. “Get something in writing, get it checked by a legal team to make sure the airline is safe.”