An Exclusive Look at How WestJet Makes its Holiday Magic

<p><span style="font-size:16px;">When an airline creates a cool video, it's notable. When they create one every Christmas season and spread cheer and gifts to Canadians in need, and when their annual holiday videos become something people look forward to seeing, it becomes something very special.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:16px;">Such is the case with the annual<a href="http://When an airline creates a cool video, it's notable. When they create one every Christmas season and spread cheer and gifts to Canadians in need, and when their annual holiday videos become something people look forward to seeing, it becomes something very special. Such is the case with the annual WestJet holiday video, which TravelPulse Canada previewed first earlier this week. It's another inspiring story of how a company can improve its image with innovative technology and a little Canadian spirit. "We used to do an annual fake news releases during the holidays, which sounds kind of funny nowadays given how that phrase has taken off," Richard Bartrem, WestJet Vice-President Marketing Communications, said in an exclusive interview with TravelPulse Canada. "Then in 2012 we did our flash mob video, which did very nicely." Those were all well and good, but it was in 2013 when WestJet hit the Christmas jackpot. "Our people got together and decided we should do something with the idea of a Christmas miracle. We found out what some of our guests wanted for Christmas before they got on the plane and then did our shopping in the air and surprised them when the landed." That year's video, The WestJet Christmas Miracle. went supernova-viral, with more than nearly 48 million YouTube views to date. "It's been seen by someone in every country of the world at least once," Bartrem said. "We may never see those kinds of numbers again." Bartrem said they tracked the website hits and found that it was viewed six times in Vatican City in the first two months of its release. "I like to joke and say that someone in The Vatican was searching the web for the words 'Christmas miracle' and was about to say, 'Hey, your eminence, look at this' before they realized it was a marketing thing." It's a wonderful thing to give gifts to Canadians and to offer free flights to needy kids and their families, as WestJet did this year with their 12 Flights of Christmas video. At the same time, Bartrem freely admits it's great publicity for the airline. "It's become this tradition where Canadians now anticipate what WestJet is going to do this year. But we're trying to market ourselves and differentiate ourselves. We all fly these aluminum cylinders at 35,000 feet and land in many of the same airports in the same city, so the differentiator for us is what we do and how we do it." Bartrem said planning for the year's video usually starts in summer. "After the 2013 video we realized that, 'Holy smokes, we really have our work cut out for us.' So we started backing up the planning process. Typically, we start in July to loosely plan what we're thinking of. Last year we had the forest fires in Fort McMurray so we started in May. We were quite confident that our only choice last year was to help them celebrate Christmas. "It's interesting because we contacted emergency authorities to try to get names of people who needed help, but they couldn't provide the information due to privacy concerns. So, we took to social media and Facebook and such to find people who had lost their homes and such." That was great, but Bartrem said they don't want to always be responding to natural disasters or other events. This year they decided to do Facebook Live events in 12 destinations over 12 days, using the 12 Days of Christmas as their theme and bringing in kids from St. Alban's Boys and Girls Club to see what they wanted for Christmas. "We introduced the secondary character of Mrs. Claus recognizing we couldn't fly Blue Santa (the WestJet Santa Claus) to 12 markets over 12 days without killing him," Bartrem joked. Beyond the Santa situation, it was tricky to set up so many flights and so much live coverage. And then there were the gifts. "One child wanted a world made of gingerbread. We couldn't do that but we built a giant gingerbread gate in Otttawa. Another child talked about dance and ballet so we had the Royal Winnipeg ballet perform at the Winnipeg Airport. One child wanted to hear 'A Christmas Story' so we got Peter Mansbridge to do it at the airport." The result was the 12 Flights of Christmas video, with 12 events held on consecutive days in 10 cities and one in-air flight. To watch each miracle in action, visit the WestJet Christmas hub. The video is a compilation of a dozen flights broadcast to Facebook Live, with guests ranging Blue Santa to Mrs. Claus and celebrity guests ranging from sports stars to Colin Mochrie "spreading love and cheer" to hundreds of WestJet guests. "Christmas, through the eyes of a child, is magical, and the children gave us wonderful inspiration for surprising our guests," Bartrem said. "The best part was that the children got to be present to witness their own miracle come to life." The most amazing thing about the experience was being able to pull it off in so many cities, Bartem said. "Behind the scenes, pulling it together was truly remarkable. One child wanted a world filled with puppies so we had to get 40 therapy dogs and one cat through airport security. We had cameras all over the place and multiple angles The Studio m people (who do the videos for WestJet) are tremendously clever." While the Christmas video has become a big thing in Canada, it's far from the only charitable program WestJet is involved with. "For Father's Day we did a promotion and a video with Ronald McDonald House and flew a child's hockey team in from Newfoundland to surprise him in Toronto," Bartrem said. "We've donated more than 65,000 flights over 10 years." Bartrem said Boys and Girls Clubs are one of eight charities WestJet supports through its WestJet Cares for Kids program. The cost of the Christmas videos is "comfortably into six figures," he said. It also requires a large team of workers, not just public relations and marketing folks but also the airline's social media team. "Hundreds of WestJetters are involved in these, with probably a dozen people on the core side of things." Bartrem said it's been fun to watch how the videos, and WestJet itself, have grown. "I've been here 12 years," he said. "We've gone from 45 planes to 167. I go to speak to orientation classes for new employees and say, 'Hey, if you think you missed all the exciting growth at this company hang on to your hats.'" WestJet recently expanded its sharing agreements with Delta and Qantas. They already had agreements with KLM and Air France. "These agreements open up pretty much any destination in the world from just about anywhere in Canada," Bartrem said. Now they're building Swoop, an ultra-low-cost airline he said should debut in Canada next summer. Destinations should be announced in February, he said, when tickets will go on sale. "Swoop is interesting," Bartrem said. "A lot of people are suggesting it's WestJet trying to grab onto the lower end of the market, and that's exactly what it is. If the demand from consumers shifts and they want a lower fare with less product included in the overall price for that seat, if there's a market for that then absolutely we want to be a part of it and we'll invest in it." The airline biz is a changing industry, he added. But so is every part of the business world. "When I started my career in the packaged goods business there was a new retailer coming in called Costco. People said, 'Who wants to go to a giant warehouse and buy things in bulk?' The answer was, everybody."" target="_self"> WestJet holiday video</a>, which TravelPulse Canada previewed first earlier this week. It's another inspiring story of how a company can improve its image with innovative technology and a little Canadian spirit.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:16px;">"We used to do an annual fake news releases during the holidays, which sounds kind of funny nowadays given how that phrase has taken off," Richard Bartrem, WestJet Vice-President Marketing Communications, said in an exclusive interview with TravelPulse Canada. "Then in 2012 we did our flash mob video, which did very nicely."</span></p><p><span style="font-size:16px;">Those were all well and good, but it was in 2013 when WestJet hit the Christmas jackpot.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:16px;">"Our people got together and decided we should do something with the idea of a Christmas miracle. We found out what some of our guests wanted for Christmas before they got on the plane and then did our shopping in the air and surprised them when the landed."</span></p><p><span style="font-size:16px;">That year's video, The WestJet Christmas Miracle. went supernova-viral, with more than nearly 48 million YouTube views to date.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:16px;">"It's been seen by someone in every country of the world at least once," Bartrem said. "We may never see those kinds of numbers again."</span></p><p><span style="font-size:16px;">Bartrem said they tracked the website hits and found that it was viewed six times in Vatican City in the first two months of its release.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:16px;">"I like to joke and say that someone in The Vatican was searching the web for the words 'Christmas miracle' and was about to say, 'Hey, your eminence, look at this' before they realized it was a marketing thing."</span></p><p><span style="font-size:16px;">It's a wonderful thing to give gifts to Canadians and to offer free flights to needy kids and their families, as WestJet did this year with their 12 Flights of Christmas video. At the same time, Bartrem freely admits it's great publicity for the airline.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:16px;">"It's become this tradition where Canadians now anticipate what WestJet is going to do this year. But we're trying to market ourselves and differentiate ourselves. We all fly these aluminum cylinders at 35,000 feet and land in many of the same airports in the same city, so the differentiator for us is what we do and how we do it."</span></p><p><span style="font-size:16px;">Bartrem said planning for the year's video usually starts in summer.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:16px;">"After the 2013 video we realized that, 'Holy smokes, we really have our work cut out for us.' So we started backing up the planning process. Typically, we start in July to loosely plan what we're thinking of. Last year we had the forest fires in Fort McMurray so we started in May. We were quite confident that our only choice last year was to help them celebrate Christmas.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:16px;">"It's interesting because we contacted emergency authorities to try to get names of people who needed help, but they couldn't provide the information due to privacy concerns. So, we took to social media and Facebook and such to find people who had lost their homes and such."</span></p><p><span style="font-size:16px;">That was great, but Bartrem said they don't want to always be responding to natural disasters or other events. This year they decided to do Facebook Live events in 12 destinations over 12 days, using the 12 Days of Christmas as their theme and bringing in kids from St. Alban's Boys and Girls Club to see what they wanted for Christmas.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:16px;">"We introduced the secondary character of Mrs. Claus recognizing we couldn't fly Blue Santa (the WestJet Santa Claus) to 12 markets over 12 days without killing him," Bartrem joked.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:16px;">Beyond the Santa situation, it was tricky to set up so many flights and so much live coverage. And then there were the gifts.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:16px;">"One child wanted a world made of gingerbread. We couldn't do that but we built a giant gingerbread gate in Otttawa. Another child talked about dance and ballet so we had the Royal Winnipeg ballet perform at the Winnipeg Airport. One child wanted to hear 'A Christmas Story' so we got Peter Mansbridge to do it at the airport."</span></p><p><span style="font-size:16px;">The result was the 12 Flights of Christmas video, with 12 events held on consecutive days in 10 cities and one in-air flight. To watch each miracle in action, visit the WestJet Christmas hub.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:16px;">The video is a compilation of a dozen flights broadcast to Facebook Live, with guests ranging Blue Santa to Mrs. Claus and celebrity guests ranging from sports stars to Colin Mochrie "spreading love and cheer" to hundreds of WestJet guests.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:16px;">"Christmas, through the eyes of a child, is magical, and the children gave us wonderful inspiration for surprising our guests," Bartrem said. "The best part was that the children got to be present to witness their own miracle come to life."</span></p><p><span style="font-size:16px;">The most amazing thing about the experience was being able to pull it off in so many cities, Bartem said.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:16px;">"Behind the scenes, pulling it together was truly remarkable. One child wanted a world filled with puppies so we had to get 40 therapy dogs and one cat through airport security. We had cameras all over the place and multiple angles The Studio m people (who do the videos for WestJet) are tremendously clever."</span></p><p><span style="font-size:16px;">While the Christmas video has become a big thing in Canada, it's far from the only charitable program WestJet is involved with.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:16px;">"For Father's Day we did a promotion and a video with Ronald McDonald House and flew a child's hockey team in from Newfoundland to surprise him in Toronto," Bartrem said.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:16px;">"We've donated more than 65,000 flights over 10 years."</span></p><p><span style="font-size:16px;">Bartrem said Boys and Girls Clubs are one of eight charities WestJet supports through its WestJet Cares for Kids program.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:16px;">The cost of the Christmas videos is "comfortably into six figures," he said. It also requires a large team of workers, not just public relations and marketing folks but also the airline's social media team.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:16px;">"Hundreds of WestJetters are involved in these, with probably a dozen people on the core side of things."</span></p><p><span style="font-size:16px;">Bartrem said it's been fun to watch how the videos, and WestJet itself, have grown.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:16px;">"I've been here 12 years," he said. "We've gone from 45 planes to 167. I go to speak to orientation classes for new employees and say, 'Hey, if you think you missed all the exciting growth at this company hang on to your hats.'"</span></p><p><span style="font-size:16px;">WestJet recently expanded its sharing agreements with Delta and Qantas. They already had agreements with KLM and Air France.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:16px;">"These agreements open up pretty much any destination in the world from just about anywhere in Canada," Bartrem said.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:16px;">Now they're building Swoop, an ultra-low-cost airline he said should debut in Canada next summer. Destinations should be announced in February, he said, when tickets will go on sale.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:16px;">"Swoop is interesting," Bartrem said. "A lot of people are suggesting it's WestJet trying to grab onto the lower end of the market, and that's exactly what it is. If the demand from consumers shifts and they want a lower fare with less product included in the overall price for that seat, if there's a market for that then absolutely we want to be a part of it and we'll invest in it."</span></p><p><span style="font-size:16px;">The airline biz is a changing industry, he added. But so is every part of the business world.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:16px;">"When I started my career in the packaged goods business there was a new retailer coming in called Costco. People said, 'Who wants to go to a giant warehouse and buy things in bulk?' The answer was, everybody."</span></p>

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