The “Miracle of the Hudson” involving US Air last week immediately created more goodwill and media opportunities for the airline than they could have ever come up with during any type of branding campaign. Invites, web traffic and interview requests flooded in (no pun intended) for the survivors and crew, and Marketing Daily had a good piece on the huge spike the airlines social index received coming out of the crash. The New Jersey Nets were first on the scene, inviting pilot Chesley Sullenberger and crew to their Saturday afternoon game with the Celtics (they couldn’t attend, but it won’t be the last opportunity) while the survivors tales will be told over and over again, and rightly so. One of the more interesting aspects is seeing if US Air would have the ability to capitalize on the great turn of events in their existing sports sponsorships. Since the money spend against sponsorships gives them both a platform and built-in audience, would the teams that are partners get the chance to work with the brand to expand or create opportunities for crew and passenger. As luck would have it, US Air's two NFL sponsored teams met in Glendale on Sunday (the Eagles and the Cardinals) and with the Cardinals win came a natural opportunty to link the airline and the Super Bowl to potentially get some nic. pop. Alas, as Darren Rovell reported in his blog on Monday, the US Air relationship with the Cardinals appears now to be more of a media buy than actual partnership. but the opportunity does exist for some great media and pr between the two fortunate brands in the two week lead-up to the Super Bowl. The same exists for the Suns playing in US Airways Arena, and for the Diamondbacks going into their regular season and even in spring training...good chances to work with a partner to garner all kinds of exposure and good will. Now is US Airways exploiting the incident or tempting fate by rolling out the PR machine for the brand with their sports partner.? Absolutely not. It is actually exposure well deserved and the stories of those passengers and crew, as well as the rescuers, deserve to be told and and have their moment in the spotlight, so US Air should reap the ancillary benefit as well. We are not saying that the events of the crash should be exploited through merchandise or paid appearances by US Air. What we are saying is US Air now has the opportunity to use a very unique asset to build their brand, and use their sports partnerships to do it. All will benefit from the good fortune, and in a challenged economy the push for exposure is a smart one for all.
Some other good reads…the New York Times“off the Dribble” blog had a good piece today on the NBA players and their support and interest in president-elect Barack Obama…the LA Times’ Jerry Crowe has a good piece on former NFL and MLB great Bo Jackson…and the Boston Globe has a good summary piece of professional indoor lacrosse's return to Boston…
