Centralwings · 2005–2008
Brief on Sunday.
Live on Friday.
Centralwings, the low-cost airline of the LOT group, took off in 2005 and sold most of its tickets online. It flew mostly to the UK and Ireland, and its fares changed faster than the weather forecast. From 2005 to 2008 we made its banner campaigns: the designs, the animation and every format a portal asked for. Our name never appeared in a press release. Our banners were hard to miss on the front pages of Onet, WP and Interia.
We worked like the newsroom of a weekly: a fixed closing day, no slipping and a new issue every week. Only instead of a paper for the newsstands, a campaign went out to the portals, in a dozen and sometimes twenty formats at once.
Their fares. Our banners.
TV, press and billboards belonged to the airline's advertising agencies. The internet belonged to us, all of it: from the first sketch to the last file a media house put on air.
That is why in the trade press our work shows up without our name. In April 2007 Press described a Centralwings online campaign on Onet, WP, Interia and Tlen like this: “creative: freelancers”. Press.pl, 11 April 2007 ↗
The pace of a weekly. In banners.
We knew this rhythm from working in publishing: a fixed closing day, no slipping, a new edition every week. With Centralwings, a campaign came out every week instead of a paper. A low-cost airline changes its fares faster than anyone, so deadlines were sacred.
- SundayBrief. New fares, a new route, a new promotion.
- Monday night / TuesdayDesigns. Campaign directions go out for sign-off.
- WednesdayAnimation. The approved design starts to move and goes back for sign-off.
- ThursdayFormats and delivery. A dozen to twenty files, each with its own specification and file-weight limit. In the evening they go to the media houses, TradeDoubler, WP, Interia and Onet.
- Friday morningLive. The campaign goes live on the portals. On Sunday, the next brief.
Off schedule. The schedule was one thing, aviation another. Ad hoc campaigns landed often, and always out of turn. When another carrier left its passengers stranded at an airport, Centralwings sent a plane to fetch them, and we put together the campaign that told the story right away. The weekly campaign still went live on Friday; this one went out at once.
One campaign, twenty sizes.
Every portal had its own formats and its own file-weight limits. So one idea had to fit a tall skyscraper, a square rectangle and a long, narrow billboard, and sell in every one of them. Below, the same animation plays in three formats at once, just as a campaign did every week.
The network grew. So did the banners.
A new route, a new promotion, a new schedule: each one meant another campaign on the portals. Here is a selection of the ones we made.
- 2005The Isles and Italy
The airline's first months: new routes to Dublin, Shannon, Cork, Edinburgh, Rome, Bologna and Cologne, new airports in Wrocław and Katowice. Every opening, a campaign of its own.
- Dec 2005A birthday for 1 zł
The airline's first birthday and the start of summer 2006 sales: for a week, every ticket for 1 zł plus fees.
- Mar 2006Łódź and Gdańsk
Two new airports and routes to Dublin, Edinburgh, Leeds/Bradford and Bologna. Centralwings now flies from seven Polish cities.
- Spring 2006Cheap tickets, cheapest baggage
The online version of the campaign that Art FM ran on TV and in the press.
- Summer 2006The summer schedule
Routes to Ireland, the UK, Italy and Scotland.
- Aug 2006Cologne and London for 1 zł
A week-long promotion from Katowice and Warsaw.
- Sep 2006The whole network for 1 zł
1 zł, 1 € or 1 £ plus fees for autumn flights from five Polish airports. One week, three currencies.
- Sep–Dec 2006Warsaw–Lille
A new route to France. Offline, a half-kilometre banner by the airport. Online, our banners.
- Dec 2006The earlier, the cheaper
The winter schedule and new routes from Warsaw, Wrocław, Kraków, Łódź and Szczecin.
- Apr 2007A holiday in May
Cheaper May flights on Onet, WP, Interia and Tlen. Press.pl on the credits: “creative: freelancers”.
- Spring 2007Ale odlot!
The spring campaign, with discounts for children.
- May 2007The airport is always close
For people in smaller towns within 100 km of the airports.
- Jun 2007No asterisks
Tickets for 79 zł at the full price, with no asterisk and no small print about fees. Banners on WP, Onet, Interia and o2.
- Summer 2007Lille
Introducing the French city to Polish travellers.
- Oct 2007Winter 2007/08
11 new routes: Athens, Barcelona, Manchester, Paris, Grenoble and more. Poznań joins the network.
- Jan–Feb 2008Home for 148 zł
A winter promotion on flights to Poland.
From two routes to forty-four.
We boarded just after take-off and stayed on through the airline's fastest growth. The figures below are the ones the airline itself reported at the time.
Sources: Gdańsk Airport, tur-info.pl, wnp.pl.
Where this comes from.
This case study draws on INFINI.TO's own recollection and archive and on public material from the time: