Delta 'Innovation Class' Reframes Airline

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Delta's new ad campaign is riddled with promises. Just last week I saw a big Delta poster on the wall of a jetway that said Delta was "reinventing" air travel. My travel partner and I looked at the poster and then at each other. We shook our heads as we followed the same old cattle-herd onto the same old plane with the same old lack of leg room and the same old everything else. Even Donald Sutherland can't make that claim sound believable, at least right now. But then more recently I saw Delta's "Innovation Class" idea and thought again.

Delta Innovation Class.

From the Innovation Class web site:

We will be selecting leaders in innovation on their way to events around the globe for the program. They'll be sitting in the mentor seat. The seat next to them will be open. This is your chance to sit in that seat. We’ll fly you to the event, get you in to the event, and, most importantly, give you one-on-one access you might never otherwise get.

You could sit next to the likes of chef, Sean Brock, or Eric Migicovsky, the creator of the Pebble smartwatch, the most successfully crowd-funded Kickstarter project to date. And the site promises other equally compelling mentors on future flights. The program is a partnership with LinkedIn and contestants vying for these coveted seats use their LinkedIn profile to enter.

An airline as intellectual matchmaker. Nice.

New application for the same old product.

I recently wrote about Amtrak doing a similar jujitsu move in my, "A Brilliant Amtrak Innovation Specifically For Innovative People," where writers were invited to ride the train for the creative benefits on board (the hum of the rolling train, the disconnect from distractions, the world passing by, etc.). What was so genius about that idea is exactly what is so genius about this Delta idea: it's not about changing a product, it's about reframing how we look at a product.

Where Amtrak is trying to reframe our perception of trains from a vehicle of pragmatic transportation to a creative laboratory for writers, Delta is trying to reframe our perception of their airline from a vehicle of pragmatic transportation (with very little leg room) to a mentoring catalyst for influencers and those hungry for influence.

What this idea required is an inventory of Delta's assets. And I don't mean the numbers of planes, airports, hubs, and bags of peanuts. But the brand's incidental assets, or assets that are not immediately apparent or even intentional. Amtrak heard through social media that one writer (one writer!) loved to do his writing on the train and BOOM! a fresh new brand asset was born. Or should I say, a brand asset was made apparent, was noticed, was given consciousness.

Whatever you want to call it, Delta had the same BOOM! moment when they realized that every single day "Delta flies a quarter of a million people" (imagine Donald Sutherland saying that, as he did in the recent "Up" ad). That's a lot of people, but that's not the fresh new brand asset. The fresh new brand asset is the combination of the fact some subset of those people are business-famous influencers anyone would love to meet AND the fact passengers are sitting there for hours being less productive.

Better yet, while Delta continues to invest "billions of dollars improving everything from booking to baggage claim" (source: Delta "Up" TV spot), this idea gives the brand credibility that they at least believe their claim, "We are raising the bar on flying." Who knows, this idea could change the entire travel dynamic of keeping to yourself, barricading yourself in with the arm-rests, and donning your noise and conversation-cancelling Bose headphones. Why can't the entire plane become an innovation class where people sign up to sit with each other in advance of each flight? LinkedIn could manage the whole thing.

But getting to this kind of fresh new brand asset is the definition of creativity, really. Steven Johnson, in his great book, "Where Good Ideas Come From," talks about how creativity requires a "collision" of existing ideas. In both cases, Amtrak and Delta have discovered new brand assets by forcing the collision of two otherwise existing ideas.

Your turn.

Regardless of what business you're in, how about this. Call a meeting with a couple folks from your ad agency (include a brand planner - they're good at connecting dots that others miss), from your own executive team, marketing team, and maybe even a few folks from "the field" (whatever your equivalent of a Delta flight attendant might be), and give them this brief: how can we reframe our existing product or service so that we attract new customers? Maybe have someone in your marketing team do a review of all known brand assets for inspiration. Then let the team go. Combine assets, twist them, bend them to your collective will.

When you hear a "Boom!" don't worry, it's probably just one of those transformative idea-collisions Steven Johnson was talking about.

Who did you meet up there? (Photo credit: gTarded)


