Memorable experience with KLM - KLM | Clapboard Ad Archive

KLM’s 2017 campaign Memorable experience with KLM represents a contemporary benchmark in digital brand storytelling for the travel and leisure category, as the airline and agency Nextround orchestrate a strategy rooted in immersive technology and social purpose to deepen consumer relevance in the South Korean market. By recognizing the boredom faced by children confined to hospital rooms — a reality distant from the aspirational imagery typical of airline advertising — KLM intentionally highlights a clear and relatable problem, then positions its state-of-the-art 360-degree VR experience as a potent antidote to the isolation and monotony these young patients encounter, a creative approach that aligns directly with FORMAT#2—Show the Problem within Clapboard’s 12-format taxonomy. Hosted on KLM’s official YouTube channel, the campaign leverages the power of VR to virtually transport children from their beds to the world of KLM, inviting audiences to fly with pilots through Cockpit Tales, wander vibrant global destinations, join the whimsical escapades of mascot Bluey, and follow intern Julie van Hout’s educational journey inside the airline—a suite of touchpoints designed to build both an emotional and brand-centric connection with a wider digital audience. Importantly, the activation’s spread across social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn amplifies the campaign’s resonance, reinforcing KLM’s reputation as a digitally advanced and socially empathetic brand while extending reach and engagement well beyond traditional paid media. The substantial view count of over 381,000 on YouTube substantiates the campaign’s ability to cut through in a saturated content landscape, demonstrating not just effective distribution but genuine interest and participation from the audience. By foregrounding children’s wellbeing and making an experience of the KLM universe accessible to those physically unable to travel, the campaign successfully links the promise of aviation—movement, discovery, uplift—to new, unexpected contexts, building equity around innovation, care, and brand warmth in a highly competitive market category. This balanced orchestration of purpose-driven narrative, creative technology, and multichannel engagement crystallizes why the project sits comfortably in the broader canon of globally relevant airline marketing. Clapboard rates this 71/100. As a case, Memorable experience with KLM matters because it demonstrates the transport sector’s evolving mandate to creatively harness technology and empathy when extending the value of the travel experience well beyond the act of flying.