If I asked you to erase all of the photos on your Instagram account, how much would that cost me? Twenty dollars? A month’s worth of coffee? A six-month gym membership? How about unlimited flights for an entire year?
While I, personally, can not give you any of the above, JetBlue decided they could. In late February JetBlue announced their, “All You Can Jet” sweepstakes, which gifted three winners the chance to fly anywhere for free for a year. If most flights are priced anything like the recent ones I’ve booked, that adds up to a whole lot of cash. And at this point, I am very interested in the campaign. Hook me with FREE, and I’m in.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BuY4W2jFQfn/
The ask? The giveaway concluded on March 8, and required Insta-users to completely wipe their Instagram account of all posts. After content cleansing, simply upload a photo with the JetBlue template showcased on their account, tag the image using @JetBlue and #AllYouCanJetSweepstakes, and fill in the blank to “All You Can ______,” with your own personalized message.
So this is where JerBlue begins to lose me. In my head I begin thinking, how quickly can I archive all of my Instagram posts, and slap one of their templates onto my account? Or better yet, how little effort would it take to create a new account and upload this single post? All I need is an email address and three minutes of my time.
Hmmm?
And the results. The campaign saw ~29k posts across Instagram with different takes on the messaging ranging from, All You Can Burger, to All You Can Explore. 29,000 over about two weeks is nothing to scoff at, HOWEVER I invite you to take a look at the photos using #AllYouCanJetSweepstakes, and you’ll quickly find out most entries were submitted incorrectly. Photos either did not using the correct template, did not tag appropriately, or simply didn’t take part in deleting their entire account. And the creative outcomes, well, they used a branded template.
Insert yawn.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BuwNoNMHvbC/
https://www.instagram.com/p/BuwqETDHZOz/
Trust me, I am all about free, and am the first person at an event looking for the swag bag, but take a second look at the optics of this campaign, and the FAQ page, and tell me this isn’t horribly flawed.
And now, I bring you to my list of why All You Can Jet, is junk:
- Savvy Instagrammers aren’t deleting. Instead of deleting, why not just “archive” all of your Instagram posts, get your prize, and boom, your feed is back to normal, or if that’s too time consuming, create an account from scratch?
- Stripping creativity. We’re asking users on a creative-centric platform to use a template? A template? A TEMPLATE. Come on. I have to think we could have allowed for a little creativity here.
- Background check. So follow me here, you’re asking users to remove their entire Instagram history, and then randomly selecting winners based on a single branded image? Not a lot of background to work with there from a vetting perspective. Who’s to say they aren’t horrible, or don’t align with JetBlue’s mission? You would never know, you asked them to wipe the account.
- Brand ambassadors are cool, right? Okay so now lets say your horrible winner starts to post about their 100% paid in full plane tickets, and decides to go on a 12-month bender all while flying JetBlue. Can’t wait for those uploads to start.
- Too. Many. Rules. Scroll through the 28,500+ posts using the hashtag and you’ll quickly see the many, many, many, failed attempts at entering the sweepstakes. When dealing with the general public and social media, the lower the barrier to entry, the better. Below is the heinous list of rules, taken from their FAQ site:
- Create a blank slate by deleting or archiving photos from your active and public Instagram account. Make sure to keep your feed clear through the end of the entry period on 3/8/2019 at 8:59am EST!
- Consider how you’d fill in the blank: All You Can ____ and choose an image of your own to illustrate a place, activity or a person you’d like to visit!
- Visit jetblue.com/AYCJ to upload your chosen image.
- Create your custom image frame to fill in the blank: All You Can ____.
- Download the image with the custom frame.
- Post your custom image on your active and public Instagram using @JetBlue and the #AllYouCanJetSweepstakes hashtag in the caption to submit your sweepstakes entry.
- Remember to keep your Instagram feed clear, except for your newly uploaded All You Can ____ image, until 11:59pm EST on 3/8/2019 to be eligible to win.
So, what’s the point?
Most importantly, what’s the goal of this campaign? Sure JetBlue’s name has hit the headlines, but what now? What if the winner doesn’t post about their experiences, it’s not like they’re required to. And what about everyone else? What if they erase the JetBlue photo, unarchive their photos? All is back to normal, and no sign of JetBlue? Yeah, I’m going to have to give this campaign two thumbs down.
JetBlue, you had your flash in the pan. And that’s about it.
