A colorful brand strategy that brightens up the DSM airport with a friendly feel
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Have you noticed how colorful the Des Moines International Airport is?
It’s part of an intentional brand strategy — one that we discuss on the Nonprofit Storytellers podcast with Kayla Kovarna, deputy director of communications and air service development at the Des Moines International Airport.
We’re sharing highlights of the conversation below, and you’ll find more on the podcast, including:
· Their “DSM in the Wild” campaign for inaugural flights
· How they found funding to help launch Fly DSM
· How their target marketing strategy is focused on different types of travelers
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This conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Tell me about your marketing role, what is it like?
I was hired back in April 2019 to lead our air service development and tackle communications. Previously there was nobody in this position, it was newly created at the time. We just used a PR firm to help tackle communications as needed. My role has expanded, I started without a job description, and I was able to carve out a path and, over time, truly built a brand identity that really serves us well.
What inspires you about the airport’s mission?
Our mission is about growing air service to and from the state of Iowa, and how do we make that a pleasurable experience, a convenient experience for all. For me, as somebody who moved to Des Moines from Chicago, access to travel is something I love about the city.
When I moved to Des Moines, I was traveling for work, and I fell in love with the ease of Des Moines. But I always wished there were more nonstop destinations, so when this job came up, I thought: What a fun opportunity to flex my muscles on the communication side, and also that sales side of growing air service. The mission combined with the opportunity was really attractive to me.
After you were hired, you said really wanted to champion a more intentional brand strategy. Set the stage. Where were you at when you started?
I started being looped into conversations about our website, and it was old, the information was updated, but it was not user friendly. It had a very old look to it. So that was something that became a very quick priority. I had never been through something like that, but that’s OK.
When I started working on the RFP for the website, I noticed that we did not have a clear vision of how we wanted to present ourselves to the region, to the state, to the world. We did not have a real strong visual identity. We did not have a brand identity, that was our biggest challenge. When you are launching a brand new website, it’s a lot of users experience through a visual capacity, so we definitely needed to focus on that.
Let’s break that down. What did you think was missing?
I’m sure a lot of the listeners have found themselves in a position where you have a logo. You might have a brand guide that tells you where you can put your logo, how you can stretch it or not stretch it, and what colors you can use. That’s about what we had.
We didn’t know what that logo was supposed to represent as in who we are and why we mattered to the community. I wasn’t an expert, but the biggest thing is, though, if you are willing to learn, you can pretty much tackle anything. The more I learned, the more I understood and the clearer my vision became for what that brand identity could look like.
What was the process that you took in starting your brand strategy? This is a big undertaking for an organization.
We clearly needed to streamline who we are and what our brand identity was going to look like. But we were not in a position to get a new logo, so that was a little bit of a hiccup. If we can’t rebrand with a new logo design, what can we do?
I kept coming back to, what am I trying to do? I was trying to launch a new website with the new URL flydsm.com. Previously it was dsmairport.com. So that action — fly DSM — was important. We started exploring how we could make that its own mark. Could our logo get a new buddy, a best friend? So that’s where we started.
We partnered with a local graphic design firm, and we started the discovery process. I was fortunate to have a really strong partner, I wasn’t an expert, and I was willing to admit I wasn’t an expert, so they helped point me in the direction of mapping out what I wanted that Fly DSM to represent. Our website partner did the same thing, they asked what we wanted to communicate through the new website as an organization.
What it boiled down to was I wanted our logo, and this mark, this brand campaign, to be more relevant and with a more modern look. I wanted it to evoke feelings of forward movement, of vibrancy and excitement.
When you’re traveling, we don’t want you stressed. We want you to be excited. I wanted to tell you what to do visually, which was to fly DSM.
How did you roll out the brand strategy?
The new brand campaign corresponded with the launch of the website, which was September 2020. I sent out a press release announcing that change of website. Obviously, 2020 was a crazy year, so a lot of the media that we were getting was all COVID-19 related. This was a fresh new thing for the airport, which was awesome.
We updated all our social channels and then began incorporating the Fly DSM color campaign into everything that we were doing. It was slow. It’s OK if you can’t flip the switch overnight. We started integrating into ads we were doing, we started putting it on some on-site projects.
People couldn’t find the elevator (to get to the terminal), so we decided to wrap our elevator, and we used the color campaign with this really vibrant color. We started integrating the brand into the physical building.
The Fly DSM campaign is best friend with our logo. You will find it everywhere in the terminal now. We needed to update our baggage claim signage, so you’ll now see it digitally there. When there’s an airline ticket counter that’s closed, instead of having a blank display screen, it now says Fly DSM.
Now you’ll even see it on the front curb, if someone is picking you up, there’s a wrap on the columns.
Why put it everywhere — ads, social, on your physical building?
We needed that consistency, and we wanted to make sure that we were integrating the Fly DSM campaign into our strategy. It wasn’t a one-off, it was something that shows who we are, what we offer.
I know there are people who don’t like the Fly DSM campaign, it’s too colorful for them. Maybe it’s a little too vibrant, they’re a little more old school, and that’s OK. If you’re going to embark on a brand strategy, you’re not going to appease everybody.
But when they see it, whether they like it or not, they know who we are. They know where to go for airport information because if they google “Fly DSM,” our website will pop up. And as an organization, they know that we’re moving forward.
Let’s break down why those letters. Why is DSM so important?
DSM is used a lot in our community, and that’s great for us. It’s important that people know what that is, because if you are going to travel by air. Tp find a flight you’re typing in DSM. That’s our airport code. We cannot change our code. It is given to us by the FAA. And it’s something that we need people to know.
Most people are using an online travel agency, like Expedia or Kayak. With all of those, you have to put in DSM as your airport code. So for us, DSM airport wasn’t what we needed to promote, it was Fly DSM.
Especially coming out of the pandemic, we wanted to promote flying. Fly DSM.
You rolled this out over time. What has that been like? And what results have you seen?
Our first goal was to get people using the new website. That’s what we were really pushing, for a multitude of reasons, and it was incredibly successful. Our website garnered more traffic than ever before, for a lot of reasons.
Obviously, it was a new website, so there as some interest there, but we were also doing some intentional marketing around driving people to that website.
We created some user-friendly assets on the website that people could quickly use like arrivals and departures, a real time parking estimator is on there. Later, we added like a parking cost calculator, so there's a reason people should go to that website, since you don’t book your flight through our website.
Over time, Fly DSM became an opportunity to create a more relevant visual identity across our market segments. For the growing segments that are traveling more, this campaign definitely resonates with them.
“We have a very small marketing budget. I really have to get targeted. I really have to get targeted and focus on who could be looking to travel, and how can we inspire that travel?”
How do you drive people to your website? You are providing value, but you also have to get people there.
What’s interesting about our website is that it’s information only. We are not converting anything; you can’t book a flight from our website. We have all our nonstop destinations on there, so it’s very easy for somebody to see their options.
Our social media following has been grown intentionally, and we’ve done targeted digital ads. That’s been our biggest thing. For the business traveler, we have some stuff in business journals but for the most part it’s digital ads.
We have a very small marketing budget. We can’t mass market; I can’t do the “spray everywhere” approach. I really have to get targeted and focus on who could be looking to travel, and how can we inspire that travel through some teasers of where you could go. That’s how we draw people to the website.
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