Lufthansa tells the U.S. multicultural community “we fly home”

The first association most consumers make with Lufthansa is that it is a German airline. As a result, many assume the carrier serves mostly German destinations.

However, in an ethnically-diverse market like the United States, the airline recognized the value of telling key target groups that Lufthansa not only serves Germany, but flies to wherever home might be. Jennifer Urbaniak, Communications Manager of Lufthansa for North America, aligned with Global Advertising Strategies, a leading multicultural marketing agency, to promote an online booking tool (www.WeFlyHome.com) designed specifically for immigrants visiting their home countries.

According to Urbaniak, “Ethnic marketing is extremely important to a company like Lufthansa. More than 60% of our customers connect beyond Frankfurt and Munich. It is indeed essential to Lufthansa to have an ethnic component as part of our overall marketing campaign.”

“As a result, we have experienced triple or quadruple-digit increases from many of our ethnic targets since establishing Lufthansa’s WeFlyHome®. It is clear that our customers appreciate this program. The media and marketing platforms we use certainly touch home for them.”

A test campaign included five communities of nationalities within the US: Polish, Greek, Russian, Israeli, and Indian. Within six months, traffic to the Lufthansa WeFlyHome® site went from zero to nearly 300,000 unique web visitors. More importantly, ticket sales surpassed their business goal by 91%.

Now, WeFlyHome® targets 21 ethnicities within the U.S. market and the site offers an in-language booking option for most of these groups. The campaign relies greatly on online advertising, including placements on well-known in-country sites like TimesofIndia.com and Russia’s Lenta.ru, with geo-targeting to U.S.-based visitors only.

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