The rise of retail media has inspired not just retailers but a whole raft of other businesses to launch their own media networks, drawing on their connections with consumers and commerce systems to introduce a new revenue stream. Among the entrants to the broader world of “commerce media” are ride-sharing services Uber and Lyft; BNPL solution Klarna; payments provider PayPal; gym chain Planet Fitness — and United Airlines.
United Airlines’ Kinective Media officially debuted in June 2024 after running in “stealth mode” since the beginning of this year. Described by the company as a “traveler media network,” United says that Kinective is the “the first media network that uses insights from travel behaviors to connect customers to personalized, real-time advertising, content, experiences and offers from leading brands.”
One of the first brands to test out the new offering was TelevisaUnivision, which was looking for new ways engage with Spanish-speaking audiences and drive subscriptions for its streaming service ViX.
“We started out thinking about how to really surprise and delight the Spanish-speaking traveler [by] integrating TelevisaUnivision content into our new in-flight entertainment system,” said Aaron Gallagher, Managing Director and Head of Sales for Kinective Media by United Airlines at the IAB Connected Commerce Summit last month. “From there a bigger conversation took off about how we could build a multi-channel partnership.”
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“Part of the excitement that we had when we saw the [United] platform was about engaging with the 63 million Latinos in the U.S.,” added Fernando Romero, SVP of U.S. Digital Advertising Sales at TelevisaUnivision, at the event. “The projection of what they’re going to be doing in terms of travel is exciting — [U.S. Latinos] spend something like $40 billion on travel every year and they over-index in terms of travel engagement and number of flights. So we saw a very specific opportunity here to have our content be front and center in this really engaging ecosystem, but also enhance that as an advertiser. ViX is still three years young in the U.S., so part of our initiative was also to get subscribers.”
Travelers: A Truly Captive Audience
The Kinective offering includes a number of touch points across the travel experience, from research and booking on the United website and app to United’s collection of airport lounges across the country to the in-flight entertainment offerings on board United flights. Additionally, there are post-travel, off-platform offerings that draw on United’s data set of 39 million MileagePlus members and more than 109 million travelers, according to Gallagher.
But perhaps the most interesting feature of United’s advertising proposition is the distinctive environment in which it operates: “In the airport and on the plane, you’re reaching a truly captive audience,” Gallagher pointed out. “Average flight time is about three-and-a-half hours; average travel time from the beginning of your journey to the end can be between six and 10 hours. So [advertisers] are reaching that consumer and delivering targeted messaging [in really unique spaces].”
Univision x United: A ‘1+1+1 = 5 Environment’
At the core of the campaign that Kinective created with Univision was a content partnership in the form of a custom ViX channel on United’s in-flight entertainment system. “We saw a ton of really strong engagement in terms of people who actually went in to watch the content [while on the plane],” said Gallager. “And then we built an entire marketing program around it as well.”
That program included advertising on United.com and the United app as well as interactive features within the in-flight entertainment system — in addition to the standard 15- or 30-second promotional video ads, the system’s browsing area featured integrated tiles that, when clicked, took users to a full-screen ad promoting ViX with a QR code they could scan to subscribe.
“It truly was a unique opportunity not only to engage the audience with great content while they’re traveling, but also be able to drive subscriptions,” said Gallagher. “That’s where the commerce element comes into this — it was a great user experience, and that’s something we’re very much focused on, with targeted messaging that was relevant to [them].”
The multi-faceted partnership required “a lot of internal stakeholders to lean in,” said Romero, bringing together, as this campaign did, not just the marketing and ad sales teams but also the content division. For Romero the most exciting piece of the proposition was “building a solution that was specific to commerce media, but a little bit different than what’s available out in the marketplace right now under the travel vertical, but also from a content lens perspective and really marrying our brands. It’s a one-plus-one-plus-one equals five kind of environment.”
Future Opportunities: Loyalty Integrations, Audio and Kiosks
In addition to successfully bringing in new ViX subscribers (which both Gallagher and Romero confirmed, although neither shared specific numbers), Gallagher said the campaign resulted in a measurable brand lift for Univision. “We saw a lift in brand awareness [among] people who were exposed to ViX or Univision messaging in our lounges and in our data-information displays, as well as with the in-flight entertainment experience,” said Gallagher. “And then when we layered on additional media elements, whether it was digital display or off-platform executions or pre-roll on United.com, the app or off-platform, there [was another] 10% increase in brand lift and awareness.”
“From a ViX perspective, we’re in a very competitive landscape with all the other streamers that are out there, so we really needed that brand lift to drive awareness, consumption, engagement and subscribers to really get the brand name out there,” added Romero.
Moving forward, both Gallagher and Romero see ample opportunity for the partnership to grow in a number of ways, including:
- Post-travel targeting of individuals who sought out Univision’s Spanish-language content during their voyage;
- Integrating further with the MileagePlus loyalty community;
- Audio integrations; and
- More experiential activations, including at the airline’s check-in kiosks and other sites throughout the travel experience.
