The Olympic sponsorship campaign for British Airways was the first brand campaign launched on Facebook in the UK. Viewers watched the launch ad by entering their postcode. They were then served a personalized version of the spot, where a 747 took a seamless detour past their house. It generated over 170 million Facebook impressions and 10 million engaged with it – 14% of the entire UK population.

The campaign, built on a counter-intuitive call to action ‘Don’t Fly’, had the highest volume of coverage of any sponsor despite being vastly outspent, and generated 3,387 press stories. It included experiential, documentary films, out of home, press, daily promoted social posts, page takeovers and a giant image of GB athlete Jessica Ennis painted under the flightpath into London.

Sponsorship awareness rose from 19% > 54%, placing BA above Adidas and Visa.

The campaign was awarded Best Engagement Strategy at the Festival of Media Awards in Montreux Switzerland and recognised in a PR Week/OnePoll survey as the most impactful sponsorship of the games, cited by 16 per cent of respondents – 4% above the second place brand.