Air Arabia

The objective

Building brand awareness and consideration for affordable air travel globally, and converting Middle East and EU travelers

Air Arabia, the Middle East’s leading budget carrier, set out to strengthen its global positioning as the smart choice for affordable and reliable travel. With expanding routes across Europe, the GCC, and North Africa, the airline aimed to boost awareness and drive stronger brand consideration across key international markets.

The challenge was twofold: scaling creative production efficiently across 12 culturally diverse regions, while delivering measurable impact throughout the full marketing funnel. Air Arabia partnered with TikTok to connect branding and performance Ai-powered creative tools and interest-based audience discovery—helping the airline reach the right travel audiences with relevant and compelling storytelling.

In the UAE, Air Arabia also activated TikTok’s flagship solution for airlines, Travel Ads Smart+, using branded and automated creative formats to drive searches and bookings, marking a first-of-its-kind approach for the travel industry.

The solution

Combining TikTok’s Gen-Ai and Smart+ solutions to localize, optimize, and scale performance

Air Arabia leveraged TikTok’s end-to-end ecosystem — from creative production to conversion — to drive awareness and bookings efficiently across 12 markets. The campaign began with Smart+ Dynamic Travel Ads (DTA), connecting Air Arabia’s global flight catalog to deliver contextually relevant travel videos to the right audiences based on their interests and intent.

To scale creative output, Air Arabia partnered with Zoomcat through the TikTok Creative Exchange (TTCX) program and used TikTok Symphony’s automated text-to-video and dubbing capabilities to produce 44 localized, TikTok-first assets. These videos incorporated local languages, culturally aligned messaging, and relatable creator-style storytelling that resonated strongly with travel audiences.

TikTok’s Video Views and Reach objectives were used to maximize upper-funnel impact, while Smart+ optimization ensured performance efficiency. The creative strategy centered on relatability and narrative clarity — with the top-performing format, “Reasons-to-Buy First + Creator Talking to Camera,” delivering a +11% higher 6s VTR and +77% higher checkout rate compared to other formats such as vlog-style or checklist videos.

Air Arabia also used TikTok’s Brand Lift Study (BLS) to measure impact across key brand metrics including ad recall, favorability, and association, providing a data-driven framework for ongoing optimization.

This integrated approach seamlessly connected brand storytelling and performance, demonstrating how localized creative production and intelligent media activation can work together to deliver both awareness and action at scale.

The results

Efficient scaling of reach, relevance, and conversions through TikTok’s Ai ecosystem

The campaign reached more than 50 million people on TikTok and delivered 227 million impressions across 12 global markets, including 5 million 15-second video views at an efficient cost per view of $0.05.

In the UAE, Smart+ optimization and Dynamic Travel Ads (DTA) helped deliver stronger efficiency compared to standard website conversion campaigns, contributing to more than 80,000 flight-related searches.

TikTok’s Brand Lift Study (BLS) showed notable improvements across key brand metrics, including an average +10% lift in ad recall, +2.57% in brand association, and +3.98% in favorability — with standout results in markets such as Germany, France, Spain, etc.