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Testing a video ad through an automated survey (in Australia!)

Aviation Marketing:
Decoding Consumer Reaction to a Virgin Airways Ad

Anna Kupriyanova
Marketer
Who's this case study for?
  • Market researchers
  • Insights managers
  • R&D directors
  • Marketers
  • All else who have a taste for optimising / streamlining / simplifying the hell out of everything, especially market research.

Welcome! At Fastuna we get giddy about using our own automated market research tools to run quick tests with consumers all over the world. We get particularly excited when there's a shiny new controversial ad to pick apart.

This is one of those times.
Virgin Airways Australia just released a new ad. Now, why do airlines advertise?
Ultimately, to gain an edge over competitors. Duh.

So, the question is:
Does the ad by Virgin Australia manage to communicate
the airline's advantages?
Fasten your seatbelts.
This is what we discovered through rapid consumer feedback.
METHODOLOGY
Stimuli: a video ad by Virgin Australia.
Target: Australia, male, female, from 18 to 65 years, 100 respondents sample size.
Research Solution: Video Test — a ready-to-use market research tool by Fastuna for testing video ads (online survey).
Time to Result: 4 hours (from video uploading and pressing the launch button to the report).
Airlines don't just sell paper tickets, they sell a service. And marketing a service isn't so easy. You can't touch it, taste it, and (hopefully) you can't smell it.

Virgin Australia got creative to work around this issue. The ad features a team of baggage handlers putting on a cheery dance performance while a sour-faced teenager watches them from her window seat.

Spoiler alert: the teen smiles at the end.
So, was the creativity rewarded?

If you go to YouTube or other websites with open comment sections you'll see plenty of hate for this ad.
It will give you the impression that the ad failed.

Reading comments on social media can be misleading:
You might have a skewed impression about the level of tolerance of today's consumers to brave advertising if you only base it on social media comments.

It is possible that they will be made by a small group of people who lean to the conservative side of the scale. To understand your audience better, select those methods which will accurately represent them.
Our market research tool took 4 hours to collect the respondent's feedback and generated a report.
Fastuna. Automated market research tool. Survey solutions.
Video Ad Testing solution: general perception score is above the average
The General Perception score reflects the overall likeability of the ad. It is also based on the KPIs that signal a person's readiness to ENGAGE with the tested material, namely: the desire to learn more about it, share it with others and to try the advertised service.

The score is above average - a good result (especially for an ad that wasn't so well-received online).

To see the full picture, let's take a look at the breakdown of 9 metrics that reflect the consumer attitude.
Do people like your video ad? Does it stimulate action? How to improve it? With the Video Surveying research solution, you can test finished ads and video drafts. Getting actionable results only requires 15 minutes of your time.
Too cheery to be true?
Fastuna. Automated market research tool. Survey solutions.
Video Ad Testing solution: breakdown of the ad by 9 criteria
Instantly we can spot the culprit: Believability scored critically low as indicated by the color red. There is also a lack of Clarity and a less-than-satisfactory Learn more metric.
The report provides areas for improvement. Learn about them early enough - you'll be able to adjust quickly and produce a much better ad. We advise to use our video survey solution for testing bordomatics / animatics and storytellings.
Another feature of the report is the open-ended question section.
Paired with the interactive word cloud, it shows the number of positive, negative and neutral reactions, and allows to understand the "why's" behind the metrics in the dashboards.
Fastuna. Automated market research tool. Survey solutions.
Interactive World Cloud in Fastuna's report
74/100 comments were positive, along the lines of:
What a great advert…very unique and different. Certainly makes me think of Virgin in a different way. The advert is upbeat, modern and amusing. Fits perfectly with virgin airways. — Male, 52
But we're interested in the less glowy reviews:
These comments explain why the Clarity and Believability metrics scored low.
I don't see how it was relevant to a flight company.
The dancing was a bit annoying. — Female, 34
Just a bit ridiculous, to think that the ground crew of any airline
is that enthusiastic about their job. — Male, 62
Explore more opinions and play with the word cloud in the live dashboard:
Coming back to our question:

Does the ad by Virgin Australia manage to communicate the airline's advantages?
It's not a resounding yes…but it's a yes.

If only the clarity and believability was tweaked to maximise the ad's potential.
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