Icelandic airline
How Icelandair transformed campaigns into gamified experiences that capture attention, grow their audience, and inspire future travel.
For Icelandair, marketing gamification started as a way to strengthen one of their most important marketing channels: the newsletter subscriber list. The main goal was to collect more marketing permissions while also engaging customers in a way that was enjoyable and memorable for them. Through playable campaigns, the team discovered they also could hold attention for longer and make interactions feel more personal.
After seeing the initial results, Icelandair expanded how they use gamification, making it part of larger multi-channel campaigns. By integrating games into broader marketing concepts, their audience reach increases, and their campaigns are more powerful and effective.
“When we are planning a campaign, including gamification helps us strengthen it and make our marketing more effective overall.” Bjarney María Bjarnadóttir, Digital Marketing Specialist at Icelandair
“When we are planning a campaign, including gamification helps us strengthen it and make our marketing more effective overall.”
Bjarney María Bjarnadóttir, Digital Marketing Specialist at Icelandair
As Iceland’s flag carrier, Icelandair speaks to two very different audiences. In Iceland, the market is small and intimate, every campaign is highly visible, and success relies on building personal relationships and maintaining strong brand affinity. Abroad, the challenge shifts: Icelandair competes in a crowded travel market, where the focus is less on familiarity and more on positioning Iceland as a unique, must-visit destination.
Balancing these two worlds requires a versatile marketing approach: personal and approachable in Iceland, yet inspiring and distinctive on the global stage. Gamification plays a key role here, helping the airline engage local audiences in meaningful, playable ways, while simultaneously making their brand and country stand out to international travelers.
Let’s look at two recent campaigns: one designed for Icelandair’s global audience, and another focused specifically on engaging travelers in Iceland.
Icelandair wanted to reach a global audience and convince people of Iceland’s real beauty. To inspire travelers, the campaign needed to capture attention and stay top of mind, so that when people decided to plan a trip, Iceland would be the destination they remembered.
The idea was to compare Iceland’s surreal landscapes with AI-generated images. Rather than presenting people only with a standard ad, Icelandair wanted the audience to actively engage and immerse themselves in the experience. By turning the concept into a game, participants could test their ability to distinguish real Icelandic scenes from AI creations, from the Northern Lights to dramatic waterfalls and volcanic landscapes. In a world full of AI images this was a great way to show people that Iceland’s real beauty and doesn’t need any AI enhancement.
“When we run a campaign like Real vs AI, one of the goals is memorability. People are far more likely to remember an experience they’ve actively engaged with than just an ad they’ve seen” – Bjarney María Bjarnadóttir, Digital Marketing Specialist at Icelandair
“When we run a campaign like Real vs AI, one of the goals is memorability. People are far more likely to remember an experience they’ve actively engaged with than just an ad they’ve seen”
– Bjarney María Bjarnadóttir, Digital Marketing Specialist at Icelandair
The global Real vs AI campaign was easily adapted and promoted into multiple languages and countries (incl. UK, USA, IE, DK, FI, SE, and NO), thanks to the flexibility of the platform. “It went pretty smoothly because it’s so easy to copy the games you’ve already spent time on,” Bjarney María Bjarnadóttir explained. “The images are the same, so we only had to do a small amount of work to make it happen.”
The campaign was promoted through Facebook and Instagram, both organically and via sponsored posts and paid ads, as well as newsletter emails and high-visibility placements like a Times Square billboard featuring a QR code. The campaign reached travelers worldwide and left a lasting impression to inspire planning a future trip.
For the Icelandic market, the goal is different: to engage a smaller, more intimate audience in a way that feels personal and fun. Icelandair created a short personality quiz called Hvernig verður þitt sumar? (“What will your summer be like?”) to help participants discover their ideal summer destination.
Through 7 simple and fun questions, from travel selfies to dining habits, participants received a summer personality and tailored destination suggestions, such as Nice, Lisbon, or Orlando. The game wasn’t just entertaining; it incentivized participation with a chance to win a gift certificate worth over €200.
“The game refreshed newsletter leads and allowed us to break from the norm through fun, engaging social-media content.” – Bjarney María Bjarnadóttir, Digital Marketing Specialist at Icelandair
“The game refreshed newsletter leads and allowed us to break from the norm through fun, engaging social-media content.”
For Icelandair, gamification has already proven to be an effective way to collect leads, engage audiences, and make campaigns more memorable. The airline sees continued potential in applying this approach across future initiatives, using interactive formats to inspire travel and deepen engagement throughout the customer journey.
Ultimately, the focus is on refining how campaigns connect with audiences- both in Iceland and internationally- while ensuring every marketing effort delivers stronger impact and efficiency.
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