Thirty young adults of Caribbean heritage, residing in major North American cities and regional territories will now carry the title brand ambassadors for State-owned Caribbean Airlines Limited (CAL).
They were chosen at Thursday's final for Faces of Caribbean Airlines contest held at the Rise Rooftop, Carlton Savannah Hotel, located at Cascade in St Ann's, Port-of-Spain. Celebrity judges Peter Elias, Ashvin Bally, Calvin French and Miss Universe 1998 Wendy Fitzwilliam had the final say. Phillip Saunders, chief executive officer of CAL, said "the vibrant brand ambassadors would make the airline more accessible than before."
Miami carnival, scheduled to be held in October, will be the first assignment for these young ambassadors. Finalists at Faces of CAL–20 women and ten men–were selected from a slate of 950 candidates on an Internet-driven campaign, conducted primarily on the social platform Facebook. Testing the power of on-line media, CAL spent US$2,500 on the Facebook initiative alone. Saunders underscored the role that social media continued to play in the marketing strategies of companies. "The search had the potential to become an annual event for the airline," he said.
"The on-line brand ambassador search received almost 1.5 million page views and about 85,000 new visitor to the site in just two months. "Caribbean Airlines is confident that social media campaigns are here to stay and will form a large part of our strategy in the future."
