The encyclopedia · Sales & Retail · Marketing decision · 2021–2023
LATAM answered Cyber Monday by sending Chileans abroad to buy things
On Chile's Cyber Monday, LATAM pitched flights abroad to buy imported goods cheaper than at home, selling US$30m in tickets instead of competing on discounts.
LATAM Airlines · MRM Santiago
the move
In Chile, imported goods are expensive — even on Cyber Monday, the biggest discount day of the year. The same product bought abroad, including the plane ticket, could cost less.
LATAM Airlines and MRM Santiago turned that arithmetic into a campaign: instead of discounting, they invited Chileans to fly abroad and bring the goods back. The airline reframed the shopping holiday around the thing it already sold — the flight — and matched it to the real reason people hesitated.
why it works
- It played on the consumer's own calculation, which was already true: the trip plus the purchase was cheaper.
- It positioned the flight as the smarter discount, so the offer needed no price cut at all.
- It pulled attention from the discount craze toward a purchase an airline could actually fulfil.
- It converted a day about buying things into a day about going places.
what transfers
When you can't out-discount a holiday, change what it's for. Put your product inside the buyer's real economic logic — the trip that saves on the purchase — rather than your rival's price war.
what came after
'Fly Over Cyber Monday' sold an estimated US$30 million in tickets and became a reference for commerce hijacking: it won Caples recognition and a pair of London International Awards in Creative Use of Data and Travel & Leisure, and is cited as an example of entering a rival's transactional ritual with your own product as the answer.
references
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