Southwest Airlines’ unique combination of low fares, friendly customer service and reliability has made it one of the most successful—and respected—airlines in the world. Given its fanatical focus on customer experience, it isn’t surprising that Southwest has always smartly served its Hispanic customers. Over the years, the airline has invested heavily in Spanish-language advertising. In 2004, it launched a Spanish microsite, but was dissatisfied with the results. Southwest leadership chose to investigate better options.
When Southwest acquired AirTran, it discovered that AirTran had been operating a successful Spanish-language website since 2008. Capitalizing on the chance to learn how AirTran had been successful, executives at Southwest took a closer look.
Southwest’s investigation into led them to MotionPoint, the company that operated AirTran’s Spanish website. The data MotionPoint shared on how the Hispanic market reacts in the online channel made sense. Southwest concluded that MotionPoint would likewise increase engagement of Hispanics online for Southwest.com.