Airport operators, landlords and concessionaires looking to boost their ancillary revenues may be interested in a new Targeted Advertising (TAD) product created by Ink that directly targets airline passengers during the booking and check-in process by placing brands and offers directly on print-at-home or mobile boarding passes.

Ink says this allows airport operators or retailers to have their brand or offer in front of passengers’ throughout the reservation process and the journey itself, allowing them to promote ancillary airport services, travel retail or destination-specific offers. Retail offers can also be targeted with specific messages based on origination, destination, sex, age, nationality, language and class of travel.

Airlines have explored this concept themselves in the past, but have usually used targeted advertising on boarding passes to sell their own products or to up-sell to existing passengers.

Major airlines already onboard

The TAD platform has already been deployed with Air France-KLM, Brussels Airlines, Eurostar, Germanwings, Ryanair and Tiger Airways and Ink says it will be expanded to more airline customers in the coming months. It claims that its existing agreements already allow it to target over 100 million passengers per year before and during their journey.

“Targeted Advertising on digital boarding passes is the Rosetta Stone that finally connects the passenger information airlines have about travellers – and precisely when and where they will be during their journey—with the commercial objectives of airports, concessionaires and brands,” says Jeffrey O'Rourke, chief executive of Ink.

What do you think – can targeted advertising drive ancillary revenues for airports? Is this the next logical step in reaching the ‘Amazon generation’ who are used to retailers recommending products for them? Let us know by commenting below.