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Pilots and flight attendants playing #CheerCart carts as instruments in an airplane hangar

Delta committed to a thank-you, not a promotion. With a beverage cart that rolled off the plane and into five cities.

A holiday campaign at Digitas · film, an original holiday composition, and a three-week, five-city street tour.

Noah Williams · Senior Art DirectorDigitas/DigitasLBi · 2013

Every airline sends holiday emails. In 2013 Delta wanted to actually say Happy Holidays. Nothing for sale, no clever product placement.

So the most personal thing on the plane came off it: the beverage cart, rebuilt as a Cheer Cart, with real pilots and flight attendants pushing it.

The thank-you

Not a promotion. A genuine thank-you.

Delta’s holiday greeting had always gone to SkyMiles members, by email. The brief was to spread cheer for all to hear, a message with nothing attached.

The beverage cart is the one moment at 35,000 feet where a human being looks you in the eye and asks what you’d like. We gave it a stage.

Happy Holidays cart panel: a snowflake built from airplane silhouettes

The band

Carts and in-flight items, played as instruments.

Musicians, Delta pilots and flight attendants played an original holiday composition on martini shakers, wine glasses and the carts themselves. The film launched on YouTube and Facebook and became the campaign’s anthem.

Music needs no translation. The same film worked for a global audience without changing a frame.

A man drums on the pots atop a Happy Holidays #CheerCart cart; a flight attendant laughs; water pours into a cup

The tour

Three weeks. Five cities. Twenty-six stops.

The carts rolled into busy, festive places to bring music, treats and gifts, Biscoff cookies included, with a small crew of uniformed pilots and flight attendants greeting people.

Every stop was tweeted and Instagrammed live, then cut into a short film shared within a day or two. The #CheerCart hashtag was on the cart, in the films, and everywhere the tour went.

Delta flight attendants on the street with the #CheerCart carts: greeting a child in a costume, waving with families, handing out bear hats and red scarves

Holiday Starbucks cups wearing little Delta wings, at the Starbucks tour stop
A pilot and a flight attendant pushing #CheerCart carts through the terminal at JFK
Three phones showing Delta’s #CheerCart Instagram posts: a scarf on an ice sculpture, Starbucks cups with Delta wings, a dog beside the cart

The cheer

A holiday campaign that felt like a gift, not a promotion.

People met the airline in person, in the street, and the goodwill carried: thousands of smiles, in person and in social, on a modest budget.

The work made finalist at the Shorty Awards in Travel, and it was Delta’s first holiday greeting built for the feed instead of the inbox.

In Atlanta it took two Silver ADDYs in 2015, for Integrated Campaign and Social Campaign.

FinalistShorty Awards · Travel

6th Annual · 2 Silver ADDYs, Atlanta 2015 · 26 stops, 5 cities, 3 weeks

Credits

Digitas/DigitasLBi · Senior Art Director · 2013, production Bulldog DM

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