Selling the benefits of a strategic acquisition

Developing a digital campaign at speed to support a highly sensitive merger announcement and convince key stakeholders of the value behind the move

The US airline environment is complex and under heavy regulatory scrutiny. Companies interested in consolidating must prove the value of their combination. Alaska and Hawaiian had complementary route networks and a commitment to the communities they serve that made the benefit of combining clear to their customers, employees and investors.

The key was helping their main business audiences – including regulators – understand how the combination would lead to better service and returns, not just a larger group.

Both companies and their respective advisors were acutely aware of the risk of leaks, so wanted to minimize the number of people in the know.

They turned to Bladonmore as a trusted operator in critical issues communications to create digital branding, a dedicated website and social media campaign.

The website and campaign were based on the core message of ‘local care, global reach’ and backed by secondary messaging, including factors driving the compelling strategic rationale. The messaging on the site was created in tandem with Alaska Airlines’ PR advisors, Gladstone Place Partners.

With only three weeks before announcement to design the materials and create the site from scratch, we worked with great speed and accuracy while collaborating with multiple teams.

Both companies had very strong brand guidelines to help keep our design team on track. Bladonmore created three broad concepts to sell in the visual approach and moved rapidly to finalize approvals.

The microsite needed to be built, populated with content and approved by both companies, lawyers, investment bankers and other advisors. With our experience in delivering these kinds of high-pressure projects, we knew that 24-7 levels of support would be needed in the run-up to launch. We were working across 11 time zones with teams in our New York and London offices on the project so that we could hand over work overnight and maintain momentum.

The site launched just as the announcement of the deal became public. Perfectly timed so that we could drive audiences to a centralizing point to find out more details of the deal.

The site launch was backed by a targeted Google AdWords campaign to drive audiences towards the hub. The site supported information sharing for key audiences as regulators decided whether the merger can move ahead.