Outstanding Social Media Campaign

Challenge:
As the #1 domestic airline in the United States, Southwest Airlines had a robust Facebook page reflecting its fall 2011 football-themed campaign with tons of fun games and videos showing how Southwest employees call penalties on the other airlines for all their fees. How do we get people that come to visit the page to share the experience with their friends?

Solution:
We created the "You got flagged" feature on Facebook. Fitting right in with the football-inspired "Fare Play" campaign, users can "flag" friends on Facebook for annoying behaviors like updating status all the time, posting embarrassing photos of you or playing Farmville too much. The penalties were posted complete with a video of the Southwest ref flagging the offender.

Results:
Friends were penalized and more people than ever interacted with all of the content on the page, adding thousands more "likes" to the more than 1.5 million Southwest already had.

Contributors:

Chief Creative Officer:	Debbi Vandeven
Executive Creative Director:	Linda Bumgarner
Creative Director:	Krista Masilionis
Senior Art Director:	Chris Jones
Associate Creative Director/Writer:	Matt Dorsett
Copywriter:	Lauren Debiak

VML

Location: USA