I recently had the opportunity to fly with JamboJet and spotted this rather conspicuous back of the seat or in-flight advertising placement for Britam promoting their money market funds or ‘MMFs’ as they are popularly known.

One of the things that has become a favourite pastime for me is what I call ‘billboard surfing’ where I review and dissect billboards whenever I’m stuck in Nairobi’s traffic to determine if they are actually well done in terms of grabbing attention and ultimately generating sales for the brand in question.

Using the same billboard surfing methodology in this instance for Britam’s MMF ‘pitch’ via this in-flight ad placement, my sense is that it seems to hit most of the marks, as follows:

1. The ad is well brand meaning its clearly evident and well aligned with what Britam looks and feels like as far as the brand is concerned from a visual identity perspective.
2. The ad copy is well written and easy to read as well being large(ish) and easy understand in terms of what the offering is and why one should consider investing Britam’s MMF proposition.
3. One thing I liked is that this ad was not the same across all the airline seats and they had three other variations of the same in terms of visual design and copy so that its not just a one size fits all approach which good.
4. There is a bright red dot that shows the value proposition in terms of the return on investment or ‘ROI’ should one consider investing in this particular MMF from Britam so there is no ambiguity on the potential return.
5. The ad also has a couple of QR codes for the call to action which is consistent with the fact the majority if not all the passengers on the flight would have smartphones would enable to sign-up or get more information in a relatively frictionless manner. The other benefit here is that if the QR codes are specific to the JamboJet ad placements then Britam can affectively measure lead generation and conversions via the same for a clear sense of attribution as to whether the ads are actually working, or not. However, a caveat here is that most, if not all flights require you to turn off your phone or put it on airplane mode when flying so logically you could only do this before you take off, or after you land, which is not ideal in terms of the overall user experience.
6. One other caveat I saw with this ad is that the legal disclaimer in the footer of the same is far to small for the average person to read clearly meaning this should either be enlarged or removed altogether as its basically illegible. The disclaimers should then be captured via the landing pages where one would get the additional information or sign-up for the same.

It then occurred to me that for JamboJet, which is basically supposed to be a no-frills and low-cost airline in the same mould as the likes of EasyJet but quite often has flights that cost the same, or more, as Kenya Airways who own them for the same destinations, this could be a real opportunity to install interactive digital screens instead with rotating ads and perhaps some incentives to watch them by having free and ‘great’ entertainment content with sub-titles – also known as ‘freemium’ content.

Ultimately, brand placements of this nature, if nothing else, create more ‘top of funnel’ brand visibility and if nothing else those additional impressions would make one know more about Britam and what it offers from a financial investments perspective. However, ultimately, the end game for any form of advertising is to generate sales and that is the true measure of the effectiveness and efficacy of any form of marketing.