Our work
Stansted Sky
High Sandwich
London Stansted briefed Diffusion to position the brand as the main challenger airport in the Capital and to bring to life its commitment to innovation to improve every stage of the passenger journey. We began by highlighting the airport’s retail offering and how it could help provide consumers with an alternative to plain plane food.
Insight & Idea
Competition from no-frills airlines has seen many traditional operators remove complimentary food and drink from many routes, particularly if you are sat in Economy. Airports and their retail partners have capitalised by offering better-value food options for travellers, both before they fly, and available to purchase on the ground to take on-board. Diffusion’s idea was to make the latest in airline food science and innovation available to everyone. We would create a world-first, with the Sky High Sandwich, scientifically designed to taste as great on the ground as it does in the air, and available to buy exclusively from a retailer at London Stansted airport.
Impact & Action
We partnered with Professor Barry C. Smith, an expert in the science of taste, and an expert in umami, the recently recognised ‘fifth’ savoury taste. This is the only one enhanced inside a plane cabin. He developed a short list of food ingredients and flavour-pairings guaranteed to taste great in the air and worked closely with the development kitchen at one of the airports existing food retailers ‘Not Only Caviar’. The team created two fully-packaged Sky High Sandwich options available for purchase from the store.
Diffusion secured blanket coverage across national, consumer, lifestyle, regional and retail trade media including the Mail Online, Daily Mirror, Daily Express, New Scientist and Heart Radio. The campaign was shortlisted for both The Drum Awards and the Creative Moment Awards 2019. The Sky High Sandwich campaign smashed client expectations and dramatically raised passenger awareness of the airport’s retail offer. Sales increased at Not Always Caviar by 6% during the launch period, with the popularity of the new sandwiches seeing them permanently added to the product line.
