The Email Wars

Taking a strong cue from the Price is Right this week, Alaska Airlines unveiled their Mystery Discount Campaign. Does this defy all logic of TRUST? Or it does it build the excitement and anticipation for travel junkies like myself to want to jump on in?

What they do right here are things that a trusted brand can do in email. They offer fun, excitement and give you a link to click that you have no idea where you are going… or do you ever really know? Maybe it was the fact that “mystery” was attached to the offer. Not sure why it made me pause, scan and then dive in.

I loved that the campaign used three ways to get it the same offer Testing links, font sizes/bold/italic and throwing in the ALL MIGHTY button. Man we love buttons, big, shiny and clickable. One thing on the button that gave me pause was (yes I nitpick things) the arrow (meaning GO-Action-Forward) proceeded the copy itself.

The best part about this was that not only the landing page continued the process of exploration in jumping into door Two, but they made sure to repeat the creative on the home page and other pertinent pages for reinforcement during these three days.

As a bonus (I heart @alaskaair) they used the Twitter path (and maybe some other social paths) to repeat the messaging. I feel strongly about cross channel promotion and am encouraged when I see someone nailing it.

As I write this I am sitting in Seat 6F on the flight from LAX to PDX at 35K feet in the belly of the beast itself.

Take away: You might not have trust yet to “surprise”. You need to build trust in order to tease, entice and build programs like these.