Messy middle
How psychology triggers helped drive clicks in a crowded sky
Air New Zealand
Services
Performance
The Challenge
For Kiwi’s, Air New Zealand is a household name but in the US it’s a challenger up against fierce local carrier loyalty, and ultra-low fares.
To compete, Air New Zealand needed to shift behaviour at the most critical stage of the consumer journey: the final booking.
Our task? Prove search alone could drive bookings by delivering a 10% uplift in CTR and a 10% uplift in direct bookings.
The Strategy
Travellers must navigate the ‘Messy Middle’ flight comparison phase, a period where search is primarily used to influence traveller decisions and bookings.
To drive relevancy of Air New Zealand, we applied six Behavioural Science principles (including social proof, risk aversion & authority bias), rewrote ad copy and dynamically served only the most persuasive messages.
The Solution
We made Air New Zealand’s search ads psychological nudges, using AI powered responsive ads to dynamically serve behavioural science-led messages, we reduced traveller anxieties, simplified choices, and optimised conversions.
Results
This psychology-based search strategy overdelivered against KPIs.
+18ppt CTR uplift (vs 10% KPI)
+27ppt Bookings uplift (vs 10% KPI)
The success of this strategy has seen it replicated and adopted as a gold standard across international markets, including Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
