Iceland Air Marketing Strategies

This assignment examines Iceland Air's marketing strategies, particularly their utilization of social media platforms, the 'stopover' program, and overall digital marketing efforts. It delves into research papers discussing the effectiveness of hyper-local geotagging in social media content, the 'popularity effect' on user-generated content, and challenges in digital marketing. The analysis also considers Iceland Air's own website content and Facebook page, providing a comprehensive understanding of their marketing approach.

Running Head: Digital Marketing
Digital Marketing
Iceland Air

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Executive Summary
Digital marketing is the present and the future of the marketing world and hence it is imperative
that firms start investing and understanding this concept better. One of the most important tools
of digital marketing is social media marketing which involves brands to market their products
and services on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube
etc.
This report throws light on the social media campaigns of Iceland Air which has effectively
managed to garner a large customer base by it efficient marketing, relevant content and use of
the right platforms. The two major campaigns by the brand are described in detail along with the
reasons behind their massive success. A few improvements and strategies have also been
recommended to the airline in order to increase the efficacy of their social media program

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Contents
Executive Summary.........................................................................................................................1
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Engagement theory and social media..............................................................................................2
Social listening.............................................................................................................................2
Social media content....................................................................................................................3
User generated content.................................................................................................................3
Social media strategy of Iceland Air...............................................................................................3
Iceland stopover...........................................................................................................................4
Ice buddy......................................................................................................................................4
Iceland Air strategy – Reasons for success..................................................................................5
Recommended improvements.........................................................................................................5
Search Engine Marketing.............................................................................................................5
Affiliate marketing.......................................................................................................................6
Snapchat.......................................................................................................................................6
Live Videos..................................................................................................................................6
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................6
References........................................................................................................................................7

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Introduction
Marketing is an important part of any organization. The detailed process of marketing
assists firms in reaching out to customers, understanding consumer needs, ensuring effective
delivery of the product or service and addressing issues by receiving feedback. When this
marketing is performed digitally with the help of various tools on this internet, it becomes digital
marketing (Mooney, 2016). This digital marketing is a leading phenomenon which is changing
the shape of customer relationship management in the business world. From brand new startups
to full grown MNCs are effectively using digital marketing to market their products to a much
wider audience than ever before (Ryan, 2016).
Social media marketing forms a crucial part of digital marketing. It involves marketing of
products and services via social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter,
LinkedIn, Snapchat and Pinterest etc. (Ryan, 2016) Currently there are a total of 2.47 billion
social media users and the number is expected to grow to 2.77 billion by 2019 (Statista, 2017).
This copious number creates an extraordinary opportunity for marketers to influence a vast
variety of people on a single platform. The benefits of social media have been unfathomable with
every leading business actively associating with the same.
This report throws light on the social media strategies used by Iceland Air which is the
main airlines of Iceland in order to attract customers and showcase Iceland on the world map.
Iceland Air is an avid user of Facebook and Twitter and has applied sundry strategies to
effectively utilize these channels in order to create demand and uniquely position the brand.
Engagement theory and social media
Social media is a widely used digital marketing tool that assists firms in addressing a
large market via single platform. It is in fact one of the most efficient tools for customer
engagement (Leeflang, 2014). This engagement is predominantly a communication or
connection that takes place between the company and its external stakeholder through different
channels of correspondence. Business apply various strategies to enhance this customer
engagement which eventually leads to enhanced customer loyalty, transparent channels of

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feedbacks from the consumers, improved service and increased revenue for the firm (Tiago,
2014).
Social listening
Social listening is an extremely effective strategy followed by firms by ensuring that they
are always present. It is process of monitoring all possible digital conversations across various
platforms to understand what the customers are saying about the brand (Cole-Lewis, 2015). This
tool is effectively used to receive transparent feedback, addressing grievances and eventually
improving business process. Today, it has become increasingly easy for a customer to complain,
criticize or appreciate a brand using digital platform and rest assured that this point of view will
reach out to a larger audience (Powell, 2015). This also makes organizations vulnerable as well
as responsible towards their customers. Organizations can effectively use this to garner traffic
and improvise brand positioning (Mazer, 2017). This can be achieved provided businesses to
make their presence felt across all possible social media platforms.
Social media content
Despite the fact that the social media helps firms target a wide market segment, it is only
possible if the content posted by the brand is relevant and organic in nature. The relevancy of the
content is what makes all the difference (Flatow, 2015). This implies that the right content, must
be posted at the right time, in a right manner and on the right platform. Relevant content will
help firms engage customers and this in turn will increase brand awareness and value.
User generated content
User generated content or UGC is any kind of content that is created by users which are
end consumers. This is comparatively more difficult to achieve but much more reliable and
trustworthy. Every time a customer tweets about a brand or shares the experience on Facebook or
YouTube, it can organically further generate more content owing to increased number of
follows, likes or retweets (Goes, 2014). This content is better referred to user created content.

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Social media strategy of Iceland Air
Iceland Air has nailed the social media strategy by effective use of social platforms. Their
creativity, relevancy of content and the use of right platform has not only garnered them various
customers but also helped them to set the right positioning for the brand. They are especially
active users of Twitter and have efficiently used the platform to engage customers. Currently
they have over 117k followers on twitter and have yet tweeted 42.3k times (Twitter, 2017). Their
Facebook page has 483k followers and a reputation of replying instantly to messages (Facebook,
2017). Besides the everyday content that they post on these platforms, two of their strategies
have specially gained attention which are described as below:
Iceland stopover
This strategy involved the airline offering a stopover for up to 7 days, free of air charge,
upon travels across the Atlantic. This involves commuting between 34 destinations in
USA/Canada and 37 destinations in Europe (Iceland Air, 2017). The campaign has gone viral
since the time it has been launched. The offer is rather enticing and hence has garnered a lot of
attention on various social media platforms. Since inception, users have been promoting the
campaign by sharing their stories with the hashtags #Myicelandstayover, #mystayover and
#Icelandstayover. This in turn organically generated further content and led to attracting even
more customers (Lund, 2016).
This strategy even marked Iceland’s presence on the world map and helped their tourism
industry flourish. The customers were delighted and took advantage of this opportunity. Many
people shared numerous videos on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter about their Iceland stay over
experience and Iceland Air used this as an opportunity and shared all these videos and
established a personal connect with the customers. This user generated content has reached out to
many million customers and stakeholders across the globe and enhanced the positioning of
Iceland Air.
The strategy was truly impeccable and delivered the desired results for the brand. Iceland
Air left no stone unturned and tied up with various tourist spots to ensure a rather interesting stay
over for their customers. Many restaurants and local sporting rinks have offered discounts to

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Iceland Air customers. This created a win-win for both the airline brand as well as the tourism
industry. In 2014, over 5.5 million tourists visited the island through Iceland Air stay over
campaign (Vox news, 2016).
Ice buddy
Once the Iceland Air stay over campaign became a hit, they took things a step further by
introducing the buddy program. This involved customers visiting Iceland on a stay over getting a
full day company of an Iceland local buddy. This was a cherry on top of the cake that the airline
has baked and served to its customers. The airline was wise enough to understand the importance
and value of having a personal local guide while travelling to the island and hence presented its
customers with exactly the same.
This was yet another hit. The users had to fill out a form listing their interests and
requesting a buddy and based on similar interests, Iceland air allocated a buddy who would be a
personal guide for the user at no extra charge except the buddy’s food, which is clearly a small
price to pay.
The airline offered different kinds of buddies, culture buddy, adventure buddy, food
buddy, hiking buddy and more such. This ensured that people were able to do exactly the kind of
things that they wanted to do on a holiday but with an added companion. This campaign went
viral as soon as people started posting pictures on Instagram with hashtags #ICelandbuddy
#Icelandstopoverbuddy etc. Customers shared immense content on YouTube, Facebook and
Twitter and this in turn attracted more people to apply for the buddy program.
Iceland Air strategy – Reasons for success
These two strategies were the most effective social marketing strategies used by the brand.
The reason that both the strategies garnered such an interest is because of the following reasons:
1. The company played on their strengths. Iceland has always been a tourist destination and
the beautiful landscapes, waterfalls and sunsets witnessed and shared by the users were
sure to gain attention and appeal more people.

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2. The firm released the campaigns and rest of the content was generated by the users. They
encouraged people to post more and share more which in turn reached a wider audience.
3. Various celebrities like David Beckham, Justin Bieber and the Kardashian also used this
offer and the airline took this opportunity to document their experience. This was
Influencer marketing done right.
Recommended improvements
Search Engine Marketing
We live in the era where Google knows everything and the first thing people do in order
to book tickets, plan a travel, research a subject or find people is to Google. In such a scenario, it
is crucial that the Google search takes us to the right place. This is where SEM comes into
picture. Search engine marketing is a form is internet marketing that involves promotions of
various websites by increasing their visibility in search engine pages. If effectively conducted,
SEM can increase the traffic on the website by manifolds (Moran, 2014). This is why many
leading businesses have been working on their search engine marketing to ensure that potential
customers are effectively directed to their website. Iceland Air could work on their search engine
marketing in order to garner more traffic to their websites.
Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is the process of showing advertisements and marketing products on
various platforms and sharing the earnings with the affiliates. Today we see numerous
advertisements on Facebook, these paid ads are extremely beneficial for the firm. This is because
Facebook as a platform does immense research in ensuring that relevant content is being shown
to its users. Therefore Iceland air could make use of affiliate marketing and this would ensure
that if someone is looking for flights or making travel plans, these affiliates will make sure that
the particular user comes across an Iceland Air ad.
Snapchat
Another leading social media platform used by various firms today is Snapchat. This is
used to send images and videos to individuals. These images are not stores anywhere, not even

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on the cloud. Moreover, it can be used to update stories which get deleted automatically after 24
hours of upload. Iceland Air could use this platform to attract more followers and update stories
depicting Iceland air experiences on a daily rather hourly basis.
Live Videos
Another attractive feature of these social media platforms is the new Facebook and
Instagram live option which enables users to go live and share the exact experience with their
followers live. This can be used to garner an increasing interest among consumers. When Iceland
Air users are seen enjoying their vacation, playing sports and holidaying across the glaciers, it is
sure to entice people into planning a holiday soon.
Conclusion
Iceland Air has effectively and efficiently managed its social media marketing. The strategies
delivered by the firm are well planned and properly executed. Both the campaigns, Iceland Air
stop over and Ice buddy have positively impacted the brands customer service, awareness and
positioning.
There are various other platforms like Snapchat and Pinterest that the brand can expand upon.
Also new features on Facebook and Instagram like going live can also increase the airline’s
target audience. To conclude, the airline has established how effective use of social media can
not only increase customers but also help the brand position itself uniquely and gain awareness
across the globe.

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References
Cole-Lewis, H., Pugatch, J., Sanders, A., Varghese, A., Posada, S., Yun, C., Schwarz, M. and
Augustson, E., 2015. Social listening: a content analysis of e-cigarette discussions on
Twitter. Journal of medical Internet research, 17(10).
Facebook, 2017, ‘Iceland Air’, https://twitter.com/Icelandair?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle
%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor, retrieved on 16 November, 2017
Flatow, D., Naaman, M., Xie, K.E., Volkovich, Y. and Kanza, Y., 2015, February. On the
accuracy of hyper-local geotagging of social media content. In Proceedings of the Eighth ACM
International Conference on Web Search and Data Mining (pp. 127-136). ACM.
Goes, P.B., Lin, M. and Au Yeung, C.M., 2014. “Popularity effect” in user-generated content:
evidence from online product reviews. Information Systems Research, 25(2), pp.222-238.
Iceland Air, 2017, ‘Stop over’, https://www.icelandair.ca/flights/stopover/?pos=CA&lang=en,
retrieved on 16 November, 2017
Leeflang, P.S., Verhoef, P.C., Dahlström, P. and Freundt, T., 2014. Challenges and solutions for
marketing in a digital era. European management journal, 32(1), pp.1-12.
Lund, K.A., Loftsdóttir, K. and Leonard, M., 2016. More than a stopover: Analysing the
postcolonial image of Iceland as a gateway destination. Tourist Studies, p.146
Mazer, J.P., Dutchak, I. and Thatcher, J.B., 2017. Social media listening and Title IX training
crisis: Implications for discourse of renewal. Communication Teacher, 31(3), pp.125-130.
Mooney, M. and Slobodian, S., 2016. Seeing the wood for the trees: Fixing large undefined
problems in digital marketing. Journal of Digital & Social Media Marketing, 3(4), pp.294-303.
Moran, M. and Hunt, B., 2014. Search engine marketing, Inc.: Driving search traffic to your
company's website. IBM Press.

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Powell, G.E., Duke, S.P., Bell, H.G., Anderson, L.S. and Metcalf, M.A., 2015. In their own
words: Social listening for “Real-World Benefits” from prescription and OTC products. Value in
Health, 3(18), p.A86.
Ryan, D., 2016. Understanding digital marketing: marketing strategies for engaging the digital
generation. Kogan Page Publishers.
Statista, 2017, ‘Social media users word wide’,
https://www.statista.com/statistics/278414/number-of-worldwide-social-network-users/,
retrieved on 16 November, 2017
Tiago, M.T.P.M.B. and Veríssimo, J.M.C., 2014. Digital marketing and social media: Why
bother? Business Horizons, 57(6), pp.703-708.
Twitter, 2017, ‘Iceland Air’, https://www.facebook.com/Icelandair/, retrieved on 16 November,
2017
Vox News, 2016, ‘Iceland stop over buddy’¸
https://www.vox.com/2016/2/17/10919096/icelandair-stopover-buddy, retrieved on 16
November, 2017