Case Study · Experiential · Environmental Branding · Campaign, Outdoor & Social
Air France KLM asked us to mark a centenary and to fix an office, in the same year. One track ran across a metro train, three event nights and a social feed. The other ran across twenty seven spaces on their floor in Cyber City, Gurgaon, until the building finally looked like the airlines inside it.
Air France KLM runs the joint commercial operation of Air France and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines across the Indian Sub-continent, out of an office in Cyber City, Gurgaon.
The desk covers India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Air France on its own reaches 195 destinations in 92 countries, and carried 51.4 million passengers in 2018 on a fleet that runs from the A380 down to regional ATRs. KLM flew a fleet of 168 that same year.
KLM is the older half of the story. It first flew in 1919, and it is the only airline anywhere that has reached a hundred years while still trading under the name it was given at the start. That anniversary landed in 2019, which is where this brief begins.
The centenary was going to arrive whether anyone did anything about it or not. The job was to make it mean something in a market where neither airline is the default booking.
Every airline anniversary looks the same. Old aircraft, new aircraft, sepia into colour. Nobody remembers whose ad it was.
Trade partners, corporate buyers, embassy guests and people booking their own tickets. Same milestone, four different rooms, and only one of them was a party.
Past reception it was a standard Cyber City floor. White walls, grey carpet and no sign of either airline on any of it.
Air France and KLM share an office and a commercial team but not a logo. Anything built for the floor had to hold both marks without inventing a third one.
Anniversary work that never mentions a route or a fare is an expensive way to have a birthday.
We split the year into two tracks. One went out to the market, on a train, in three ballrooms and in the feed. The other went inward, into the floor everyone came to work on every day.
KLM is the only airline in the world to reach a hundred years still operating under its original name. That is not a claim, it is a matter of record, so it became the spine of the centenary work rather than a line in the small print.
Flight India 2019 for the trade and the year ahead, in Gurugram in February. All Routes to Amsterdam + 1 in Bengaluru in October for the new direct route. A Century With You in Delhi two days later at the Ambassador’s residence. Separate invitations, separate dress codes, separate RSVP routes, one hundred year story.
A full Air France wrap on the Rapid Metro in Gurugram. It runs through Cyber City all day, which puts the Paris route in front of the corporate audience on the commute rather than in a media buy they scroll past.
Passengers, destinations, fleet, cargo, maintenance, social and environment, all set as one sheet that can be read standing up. It works as a leave behind, as an intranet page and, later, as artwork on an office wall.
The strongest device in the campaign was already in the invitation: a cabin window with the view framed inside it. We took the same window into the corridors, filled the frames with destinations, with crew through the decades and with the cities the airlines fly to. From there the whole floor got named as a trip, from the Runway to the Cloud to the Gallery.
Centenary posts carried the story. Route posts carried a starting fare and a booking link. Both ran off the same calendar so the anniversary never became a month where nothing sold.
Campaign creative, three event invitations, a fact sheet, a train, a whole office floor and the social calendar that ran underneath all of it.
The hundred year story, taken out to trade partners, corporate buyers and embassy guests.
View full size →
The centenary line that no competitor can borrow. KLM is the only airline to reach a hundred years still trading under the name it started with, so we ran its full Dutch name, Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij, through the internet’s own before and after format. Same name in both frames. That is the joke and the proof.
View all 3 →
Flight India 2019 opened the business plan for the trade in Gurugram, with a Guidebook app carrying the agenda, speakers and venue detail. All Routes to Amsterdam + 1 marked the new direct Bengaluru route at the Four Seasons. A Century With You closed the year at the Ambassador’s residence in Delhi, under the patronage of the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
View full size →
Annual numbers usually sit inside a report nobody opens. We laid the year out as a single readable sheet instead: 51.4 million passengers, 195 destinations, 92 countries, the long haul, medium haul and regional fleets, cargo, maintenance, social reach and the environmental record, all legible in one pass.
One track moving through the city, one track fixed to the walls of the Cyber City floor.
View full size →
A full train wrap on the Rapid Metro. Bonjour at one end, Daily Direct to Paris at the other, in Air France navy with the wordmark running the length of the carriage. It runs the Cyber City loop all day, past the office and past most of the corporate audience the Paris route is sold to.
View all 22 →
Twenty seven spaces on the Cyber City floor, mapped one by one and named after parts of a trip. Passage ways became cabin windows looking out at destinations and at cabin crew through the decades, Air France and KLM side by side. A corridor became the Runway, markings and all. A breakout became the Cloud. Meeting rooms became the Cockpit and the Hub. The cafeteria became the Gallery, with food trays laid out in the shape of an aircraft and a departure board carrying the house rules.
View all 3 →
Main entrance, reception and office door worked as one sequence. Logo wall behind the console sized up so it reads from the lift lobby, tone on tone marks on the TV wall, and a logo strip on the entrance door set at handle height. Signed off with dimensions before a single panel was printed.
The feed running alongside all of it, half brand and half booking.
View full size →
The always on calendar kept the two airlines in the feed between campaign moments. Product truths carried the posts rather than destination stock: meal preferences taken seriously on board, shot as the actual Tasty Snack box, with a headline short enough to work at thumbnail size.
View full size →
The conversion end of the calendar. India Gate on one side, a windmill on the other, a dotted flight path between them and a live starting fare on the creative with a booking link underneath. Awareness work carried the centenary. This one carried the route and the price.
The centenary ran in three cities, on a moving train, in the feed and across a whole office floor. These are the scope figures, counted off the work that shipped.
| Office branding | Twenty seven mapped spaces designed and specified, reception through to the cafeteria |
|---|---|
| Campaign events | Three, across Gurugram, Bengaluru and Delhi, one under embassy patronage |
| Outdoor | A full Rapid Metro train wrap running through Cyber City |
| Collateral | A single page annual fact sheet replacing an unread report |
| Markets covered | India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the Maldives |
| Brand system | One environmental scheme carrying Air France and KLM without merging the two marks |
Net effect: a hundred year story that people could walk through, sit in, be invited to and book from, rather than one they scrolled past once in October.
The strongest device in the whole year was in the invitation before it was on a wall. A cabin window, with the view framed inside it. On the Delhi invite that view was a 1919 Douglas and a hundred year Dreamliner flying the same sky. In the Cyber City corridors it became destinations, crew uniforms through the decades and the cities the two airlines fly to, in frames people walk past every day.
That is the part that outlasts a campaign year. The events finished, the train wrap came down and the fare creative moved on to the next route. The office kept the story. New joiners walk in past a logo wall sized to read from the lift lobby, down a corridor of cabin windows, along a runway, past the Cloud, and eat lunch under a departure board carrying the house rules.
Two identities, one floor, and neither Air France nor KLM had to give up its own mark to get there.
Experiential branding, environmental graphics, campaigns and the work that ties them together. Let us look at your space and your calendar.
Start a conversationOther brands we have built, launched and put on walls.
ASK THE BEE · LIVE
LIVE · AI ASSISTANT
