United Airlines’ Mike Petrella on personalizing the in-flight experience
United Airlines recently bought over 800 planes, with one of the goals being to outfit all of them with its new in-flight entertainment system. The way United Managing Director of Strategic Partnerships Mike Petrella sees it, the current seat-back video screen is stuck in the past. That’s about to change though.
United became the first airline to launch its own media network, Kinective Media by United Airlines, in June, letting brands leverage over 120 targetable signals. These range from behavioral, lifestyle, attitudinal to transactional data across the 108 million profiles that United has, meaning the advertising experience of tomorrow is about to take flight.
“We envision this opportunity to have a very personalized experience in which you will have your interests displayed on that screen and every person’s screen will be different based on that individual,” Petrella shared on The Current Podcast.
United joined the growing number of non-retail companies launching media networks, from Marriott to Uber to Expedia to Chase. With over 200 media networks now available, Petrella’s looking for how networks can differentiate themselves. And one potential way that could happen is through partnerships or consolidation.
He discusses those moving tides, plus why the lines between what’s endemic versus non-endemic are being blurred, and why that ad experience isn’t limited to in-flight journeys.