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On Sunday, shortly after the Kansas City Chiefs won the AFC Championship game to secure a spot in the Super Bowl, American Airlines added a handful of direct flights between Kansas City and Las Vegas. That, alone, isn't uncommon. Airlines with a presence in a city whose home team makes a championship game will often add flights to accommodate the surge of passengers attempting to get to the game.
In this case, the reason it's worth pointing out is that American Airlines is all in the Kansas City Chiefs and Taylor Swift connection. Swift, who is dating Chiefs star tight end, Travis Kelce, has become a fixture at games. As you can imagine, that has generated an enormous amount of attention, even from non-football fans who just want to catch a glimpse of the famous musician.
American Airlines told me that it added flight AA1989, which is named after Swift's best-selling album. In addition, AA87 is named after Travis Kelce, who set the record for most post-season receptions in Sunday's game, passing former San Francisco wide receiver and legend, Jerry Rice. Then, there's AA15, named after Patrick Mahomes, and AA1521, which American Airlines confirmed is meant to honor Mahomes and Safety Mike Edwards.
Of course, it's that first one, AA1989, that most people will immediately recognize as an homage to Swift's most popular album ever, and the one she re-released as Taylor's Version late last year.
In a statement to Inc., an American Airlines representative explained its reasoning:
The excitement surrounding this year's sporting events has never been greater. You could say that after tonight's games, we are in our football era, and we are thrilled to provide additional direct flights from Kansas City to Las Vegas. To our customers who are huge sports fans, look what you made us do.
Even those three sentences are full of references to Swift, who heads to Japan for four shows of her "The Eras Tour," before presumably flying back for the big game on February 11. Even the last line is a reference to one of her songs.
Look, the Super Bowl might be the biggest football game of the year, but for companies, it's also the biggest brand marketing event. The NFL has the largest sports audience in the U.S., and the Super Bowl is the most-watched television broadcast of the year. The game is--in many years--as famous for the expensive commercials as it is for what happens on the field.
It's not surprising that brands like American Airlines would want to get in on the action. Almost every marketing professional has spent a year trying to figure out the best way to get their brand noticed in conjunction with the Super Bowl. During the NFC and AFC Championship games, there were already commercials previewing commercials for the Super Bowl.
American isn't the only airline adding flights, and it's certainly not the only brand trying to figure out how to cash in on Swift's connection. In this case, however, it did something a little more subtle. It didn't run a big, expensive, flashy commercial. It just added flights and then named them in a way that it knew would get attention.
It didn't even put out a press release or make an announcement. The airline knew it wouldn't take long for people to figure it out, or for people like me to write about it.
Judging by the response online, it worked. Besides, if you're a Kansas City fan flying to the game, why wouldn't you want to buy a ticket on American so you could catch a flight named after your favorite player or your favorite mega-superstar musician? That, from a marketing standpoint, is a stroke of genius.
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American Airlines Just Unveiled Flight 1989 from Kansas City to Las Vegas for the Super Bowl and It's a Stroke of Genius
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29.01.2024
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On Sunday, shortly after the Kansas City Chiefs won the AFC Championship game to secure a spot in the Super Bowl, American Airlines added a handful of direct flights between Kansas City and Las Vegas. That, alone, isn't uncommon. Airlines with a presence in a city whose home team makes a championship game will often add flights to accommodate the surge of passengers attempting to get to the game.
In this case,........
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