Kinective Media’s James Rothwell on United’s sky-high media ambitions

Summary

The Big Impression: James Rothwell on United’s Sky-High Media Ambitions

Released on July 30, 2025

In this engaging episode of The Big Impression, hosts Damian Fowler and Ilyse Laferne delve into the transformative journey of Connective Media, United Airlines' pioneering media network. Joined by James Rothwell, Managing Director of Brand Marketing at Connective Media, the discussion unpacks the network's growth, strategic partnerships, technological innovations, and future ambitions.

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Celebrating Growth and Success

James Rothwell kicks off the conversation by reflecting on Connective Media's first anniversary since its grand launch at Cannes in June 2024. Over the past year, the network has significantly expanded its reach, engaging a diverse array of brands eager to tap into United's premium traveler audience.

"We’ve seen some success in most of the key verticals that you would imagine, and then some surprising ones too," (02:08) James shares. A standout success story is the collaboration with the Cayman Islands Tourist Board. This campaign effectively utilized multiple channels—including email, club lounges, and in-flight entertainment screens—to drive awareness, intent, and conversions, resulting in 9,000 bookings and an impressive 13x return on ad spend.

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Bridging Endemic and Non-Endemic Brands

Beyond traditional travel and destination brands, Connective Media has adeptly attracted non-endemic advertisers, broadening the network's appeal and functionality. James highlights the success with luxury brands and B2B companies like Atlassian’s Jira, which executed a full omnichannel activation.

"We created a custom channel for them with curated content behind it, which then obviously gave them a branding moment and an opportunity to drive their messaging with more engagement," (05:26) explains James. This tailored approach not only enhanced brand visibility but also ensured precise targeting of the right audience segments throughout their travel journey.

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Strategic Partnerships and Technological Advancements

Over the past year, Connective Media has forged significant partnerships to enhance its content offerings and technological infrastructure. Notably, the partnership with Spotify introduces enriched content and deeper engagement opportunities, integrating loyalty components such as MileagePlus benefits with Spotify Premium subscriptions.

"We're the first airline to offer audiobooks and video podcasts within our planes," (06:13) James asserts, underscoring the innovative strides in content delivery. Additionally, the collaboration with JetBlue marks a strategic expansion, merging audiences to surpass 100 million passengers. This synergy not only scales the audience base but also streamlines advertising processes for brands by consolidating multiple media networks.

The integration of Starlink's high-speed in-flight internet represents a game-changer, enabling hyper-personalization and shoppable moments on every seat screen. James enthuses, "Every seat, every screen becomes addressable. We can do programmatic delivery against that, against those screens." (17:27) This advancement paves the way for dynamic content offerings and real-time customer engagement.

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Robust Measurement and Insights

A cornerstone of Connective Media's strategy is its robust measurement and attribution capabilities. The network's ability to link ad exposure directly to customer actions—like bookings—demonstrates its efficacy. James emphasizes, "Measurement and measurability is incredibly strong in the travel sector." (02:08) Collaborations with measurement partners such as Kantar Dynata and Adelaide enhance their ability to track and analyze engagement metrics comprehensively.

One intriguing insight from their analysis reveals that business travelers are more responsive to advertising compared to leisure travelers. "Business travelers are actually more likely to respond to advertising than leisure travelers," (13:41) James notes. This counterintuitive finding highlights the unique behavioral patterns of different traveler segments, informing more effective targeting strategies for B2B brands.

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Personalization and Programmatic Advertising

The installation of Starlink technology is set to revolutionize personalization within the in-flight experience. With enhanced connectivity, every screen becomes a potential touchpoint for targeted, programmatic advertising. James elaborates, "We can create shoppable moments, brand integrations. It unlocks a huge amount of content opportunities." (17:27) This capability allows brands to deliver highly personalized and interactive advertisements, significantly elevating the passenger experience and engagement levels.

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Value Proposition and Market Positioning

Connective Media’s strategic partnerships, particularly with JetBlue, amplify its market presence by combining extensive audiences. "We think there's massive opportunity there and we're talking to a number of other airlines about that opportunity," (09:36) James explains. This anti-walled garden strategy fosters a collaborative ecosystem where multiple airlines and travel partners can benefit from shared technologies and streamlined advertising solutions, enhancing scalability and efficiency for media buyers.

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Challenges and Future Directions

Despite notable achievements, Connective Media acknowledges ongoing challenges, especially in perfecting measurement and attribution methodologies. James candidly remarks, "We are still building the plane while we're flying it," (21:41) illustrating the continuous evolution and adaptation required to meet market demands and solve complex attribution puzzles.

Looking ahead, the network aims to deepen its understanding of traveler behaviors and enrich the MileagePlus loyalty program. "How we engage with them in authentic and compelling ways in a very noisy media marketplace," (20:37) James states, highlighting the focus on sustained customer engagement beyond just travel moments.

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Conclusion

Connective Media is poised to redefine the landscape of traveler media networks through strategic partnerships, technological innovation, and robust measurement frameworks. With an expansive and engaged audience, coupled with cutting-edge personalization capabilities, United Airlines’ media network offers unparalleled value to brands seeking to connect with a premium and responsive traveler base.

Notable Quotes:

• "We’ve seen some success in most of the key verticals that you would imagine, and then some surprising ones too." – James Rothwell (02:08)
• "Business travelers are actually more likely to respond to advertising than leisure travelers." – James Rothwell (13:41)
• "We are still building the plane while we're flying it." – James Rothwell (21:41)

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This comprehensive overview captures the essence of James Rothwell’s insights on Connective Media’s journey, highlighting the network’s strategic initiatives, successes, and the innovative edge that positions it as a leader in the traveler media space.

Transcript

[A]

I'm Damian Fowler.

[B]

And I'm Ilyce Laferne.

[A]

And welcome to this edition of the Big Impression.

[B]

Today we're checking back in on one of the boldest moves in airline media, Connective Media by United Airlines, as they've redefined what's possible in the fast growing world of traveler media networks.

[A]

Our guest is James Rothwell, Managing Director of Brand Marketing at Connective Media. James and his team are helping United leverage the power of 110 million traveler profiles, create new opportunities for brands across the entire customer journey.

[B]

We actually spoke with Connective on this podcast just last year and just a week after they launched. A lot has happened since then, from major brand partnerships to rapid innovation in tech, content and measurement. And today we're catching up on what's new.

[A]

So let's get into it. So, you know, James, this time last year, United had just launched Connected media. It was June 2024 at Cannes and it was the first airline media network. Could you walk us through what's happened since then? How has the network grown, how has it attracted brand campaigns and how is it working?

[B]

Can.

[C]

Yeah, absolutely. And thank you, Damian, for having me on. This is great to be here. We just celebrated our first birthday, which is a wonderful thing. We're engaging with so many different types of brands who are interested in reaching a premium traveler audience. We've seen some success in most of the key verticals that you would imagine, and then some surprising ones too. And obviously it's a slam dunk for a travel brand or a destination brand. But those non endemic brands, the non endemic advertisers who are trying to reach travelers no matter where they are in their journey or even in between journeys, we're finding really interesting use cases, really interesting targeting options and ways for them to be able to reach them across all of our screens and beyond.

[A]

Let's get into it a little further. Can you give us some examples? And you mentioned non endemics as well. But maybe we could start with the endemics and then move on to the non endemic.

[C]

No, absolutely. I think, I mean, travel as a category is a growth sector right now. I think ever since the pandemic, people have been looking to explore the world and get out of there. I mean, they were cooped up for quite, quite a while there. Right. And so travel's never been more popular. So it's, you know, like any industry, you've got to break through the noise and the options that you have out there. Right. Well, it's a big place. Luckily, we fly to a lot of different Places we have over 330 different destinations. One really interesting case study that we've just completed was with the Cayman Islands Tourist Board and they were looking to drive passengers, travelers to the Cayman Islands. And they worked with us across all of our media and we were able to do closed loop attribution based on the bookings that were then made to those destinations. So for us, measurement and measurability is incredibly strong in the travel sector and the travel space. We were able to see basically with Cayman Islands, that 9,000 bookings came from exposure to the ads that ran across email, across our club lounges and in our entertainment seat back screens on the planes. So we were able to drive awareness, intent and then conversion and we're able to track that. And they saw a 13 times return on ad spend against that campaign. So we were incredibly happy with that. They were incredibly happy with that. We obviously made some travelers very happy to go enjoy the wonderful blue ocean around the Cayman Islands.

[A]

Something nice. When you see that on screen you're like, that looks, I'm going to go there.

[C]

Yeah, that looks nice. Yeah, that one sells itself.

[B]

So you mentioned non endemic brands too. That's really interesting.

[C]

Yeah, I mean we're all travelers, right? We all got on a plane to be here in Cannes. It doesn't define us, but it certainly it helps to give context and potentially sort of insights around who we are as individuals and what we like to spend our money on, where we like to spend our time. And so that translates into a really interesting audience segment for different brands. So we've had a lot of luck, a lot of success with luxury brands who want to reach especially front of plane individuals. B2B Brands has been a real boon for us as well. Business decision makers looking, they're looking to, you know, find those individuals and we can find them on those on planes, in the clubs and through different digital channels as well. And so that's a really interesting sort of sector that we've, we've been able to really capitalize on and I think they've been able to see some significant growth on that. And we work with for example Jira, which is an Atlassian product and they did a full omnichannel activation with us and they saw some fantastic growth results though.

[B]

Very cool. Could you describe that a little bit more how I guess you worked almost like in a custom way. It sounds like with Jira for that.

[C]

One was very custom. In fact they had their own branding moment and wanted to use some of that branding and creativity and plug it into the in flight entertainment screen. So we created a custom channel for them with curated content behind it, which then obviously gave them a branding moment and an opportunity to drive their messaging with more engagement. So that was a very custom moment, but also an opportunity for us to do very targeted work to find the right audience members throughout the journey.

[B]

We spoke with Mike Petrella on this podcast just about a year ago, a week after you guys launched.

[C]

That's right.

[B]

It seems that you're moving fast and obviously moving on to things like custom solutions and everything like that. What else is new? In the past 12 months, where to start?

[C]

We've been bringing on a significant amount of partners, not only on the technical side, but also on the content side. So most recently, we did a deal with Spotify. We're very excited about that partnership, again from a content perspective and an engagement perspective that gives us a whole new set of ways and deeper engagement from people while they're on the planes. It's also an opportunity for a loyalty aspect of that as well. And we'll talk a little bit about how MileagePlus comes into our sort of overall offering. But if you sign up for Spotify Premium, there's a mileage plus component to that. We're the first airline to offer audiobooks and video podcasts within our planes. There's a lot going on in the loyalty space. We are working with many partners to be effectively integrated into our loyalty program. With that will also be a media component as well. So this marriage of loyalty and media together, it's been very successful in terms of not only helping to drive awareness of those campaigns and those opportunities for MileagePlus members to convert, but also to drive media value for those individual brands. So Vivid Seats is another recent partner of ours where we are able to give MileagePlus members the opportunity to earn miles as they buy tickets to entertainment. But you can imagine a world where for those types of companies, they know where we know where those individuals are going to at those destinations. Those companies know how many seats are available at a particular location. Can we match that data and make really customized targeted advertising campaigns to say, okay, see, you're going to Vegas. Here are some seats available when you get there. So that opportunity of matching data with our partners from a targeted perspective and then a loyalty perspective, it's really limitless in terms of what the opportunity is there.

[A]

Let me just ask you. Partnerships like this seem hugely valuable in this space. What else are you seeing?

[C]

One of the partnerships we're super excited about is a very recent announcement with JetBlue. We will be working with JetBlue in a number of different ways. Again, loyalty will be a component of that. Where we are able to JetBlue customer can use United miles to fly on JetBlue and vice versa. There will be a component that will extend to airport and gate availability down the road. There's a commerce play part as part of that where JetBlue will be powering commerce for us for ancillary products like hotels, cruises, cars, etc. And then where it's very exciting for the connected media group is that we will be effectively selling JetBlue audiences under the connected media roof that will sit alongside our United Media and United audiences. So the combination of that obviously is a scaled audience across different geographies where JetBlue is stronger in the Northeast where we are not as strong. So very kind of complementary in terms of the audience. And that obviously from an advertiser perspective is great because that's more scale. It's one less phone call to make in a world where there's 280 different media networks. That kind of consolidation or rather that, that opportunity to create an airline audience at scale. We think there's massive opportunity there and we're talking to a number of other airlines about that opportunity.

[A]

Yeah. And when you talk about at scale, you've got 63 million mileage plus members. So that's a serious.

[C]

Yeah. And 100, 174 passengers over the year. I think JetBlue is around 40. So you know, 74 million. Yeah, yeah, 174 million. Yeah. And then you had 40 million of JetBlue. You're getting up there in terms of hundreds of millions of audience members that we can now get in front of.

[A]

That's a serious proposition.

[B]

Yeah, it's a great partnership really in a lot of ways almost a surprising one too because it's like, you know, you guys are competitors but are also helping each other out in ways.

[C]

Yeah, again, it's a very complimentary partnership. I think, you know, they're strong in places where we don't have the same coverage. And, and so it works from that perspective at the airline level. I think what's most interesting for me is we think we might be the first commerce media player to bring a. I wouldn't even call them competitor. I would call them a peer. A peer into. Into the garden. Right. And this is not a walled garden, this is an anti walled garden strategy. Like it's. Let's. We've built this technology stack purpose built for the airline. We've built it so others don't have to. And we think by bringing more individuals and more airlines into this world and it could extend to travel partners more broadly than just airlines. We think all boats will rise. I should probably say planes will fly. But we think there's value in again creating scale, creating efficiency for buyers and ultimately sort of making the whole thing a little bit more streamlined.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, we like that idea that especially, you know, when we look at advertisers and media buyers, the idea that everyone benefits from partnerships like this. So it's not like we're locking you out. That idea of opening up, it's the value prop for media buyers is huge.

[C]

Yeah, it's very new. So we're still figuring out all of the logistics. It'll start on the back seat back screens and off site. How we sort of merge those and deduplicate those audiences through technology partners like Liveramp is still being figured out, but we're very excited about the proposition and we'll start selling off site later in the year and then moving on to seatback screens in 2026.

[A]

Now you did mention some metrics here, but we're just going to press you a little further on that. One of the virtues of connected media networks is that ability to tie back purchases to customers. And some of the campaigns or partnerships you've mentioned, how is that, how is that working? What kind of visibility do you have?

[C]

So we work with a number of different measurement partners. Kantar Dynata, we've just started working with Adelaide, which is an attention based measuring partner and recent sort of tests on that is looking pretty good. We, you know, you can imagine we do have people literally strapped in by their seatbelts and the screen is right in front of them. So the viewability is pretty strong. The attention is very strong too. So we're able to prove obviously that as an extension of television, whether you call that a CTV or a digital out of home screen, it's a very compelling proposition for a brand and it's an opportunity for them to tell stories on a pretty dynamic canvas. But yeah, we work with a number of different measurement partners. We continue to expand those partners because we believe that while we can choose ones that we think are good, that's not always going to be everyone's first choice. Right. And so we want to be able to create flexibility and brands and agencies to bring their own partners to the table. And so over time we will integrate more and more of those partners so that again, measurability and measurement is Enabled for all in the ways that they want.

[B]

Very cool. You were talking about how connective is offering omnichannel measurement. Are there any surprises that came out of that analysis so far?

[C]

Yeah, I think some of the insights that I've been most intrigued by have been around what I call the traveler mindset. This idea that individuals may act a little differently when they're in the middle of their journey. And a couple of reasons for that hypothesis. I think if you think about maybe you're a business traveler, your company's paying for your flight, your hotel, your. Probably a little bit of your food, if not all, while you're gone, I think people think they've got a little extra change in their pocket. Maybe they've. They'll feel a little bit more open to advertising, open to brands being part of that journey and maybe even convinced that they should go out and actually maybe spend some money on. On that brand. And obviously there's always the opportunity for those people who got their sunglasses and making that purchase in the airport. But I think it goes beyond that. What was really intriguing, though, for me was we did some analysis around business travelers and noticed that business travelers are actually more likely to respond to advertising than leisure travelers, which for me was a little counterintuitive because I thought business travelers might tune that out, given how frequent they are more. They're more likely to be frequent flyers. Right. But I think it's. They're maybe a little bit more attuned to the environment that we're in, as opposed to maybe a leisure traveler or a traveler, you know, traveler who's going with their family and they're having to look after the kids and they're a little distracted or maybe they're zoning out because they're, they're. They can't wait to get to the beach or back home. But the business traveler is a little bit more tuned in. And so I think that's why we've seen so much success with B2B brands. Because of that. Because of that insight and that response.

[B]

Yeah. And to me, it does sound like there's. B2B brands are having kind of like a moment. And I think this across all categories, but it sounds like you're seeing that too, that B2B brands are even driven to the plain beer.

[C]

Yeah. I think in general, B2B marketing, as digital has matured, B2B marketing looks a lot like B2C marketing. There's not a huge amount of difference. And brands, there are business brands that really invest a significant amount of money in that brand. And you don't have to look too far across the sports world to see how many brands are investing in high profile sporting events and wanting to reach influencers and business decision makers. I think we have a great audience for that. So I think we are another choice for brands to be able to engage with them.

[A]

Quick question here on that note. Do you have any brand partnerships with.

[C]

Sports teams at the United level? We do. We work with a number of different teams across the, across the nation obviously usually associated more aligned with our hubs where we have a lot more exposure. And so yeah, lots of different professional sports teams. And then obviously when it comes to things like NCAA tournaments, you know, we do a lot of fun marketing around that. If your team unexpectedly goes all the way, you're going to have to hop on a plane. Well, we can figure that, we can help you out with that or you can cancel your flight and don't worry about it. We'll take care of you if your team crashes out.

[A]

Moving on here, zoom out a little bit and look at the landscape, the big picture as it were. From should we say 30,000ft?

[C]

Let's do it. Terrible.

[B]

I love it.

[C]

I'll do it. You wouldn't believe how many planes.

[B]

Can I get the pun?

[A]

I'm sure you can.

[C]

Every day.

[A]

We may ask you for your favorite plane analogy at the end of something. Yeah, but you've likened Kinectiva's personalization to Netflix's style recommendation engine, but with richer signals. As more brands enter the traveler media space and we don't necessarily have to name them, what do you see as United's distinct advantage?

[C]

I'm going to highlight another partnership here because I think it will illuminate the audience on where this is going. So we announced our partnership with Starlink recently and we are scaling Starlink out across the fleet. That will take some time because we have to take those planes out of rotation, install the hardware. But we did a recent test and got hardcore gamers and hardcore streamers and we were doing shopping and testing it and they were trying, literally trying to break it and they couldn't break it. And it was absolutely flawless, super fast. That is a game changer because now you can do everything on the ground at 30,000ft and there's been a lot of questions about does that mean we're going to have to take zoom calls on the planes? And the good news is no, no one doesn't. You can't. I think you can listen, but I don't think you can talk. So that's kind of the rule there. But yeah, we had people FaceTiming with their moms on that flight. But the reason I bring that up is because that is going to effectively create a whole world of hyper personalization that just wasn't possible before. The technology that again exists at zero feet will be at 30,000ft. And so you think about what that means from an advertising perspective. Every seat, every screen becomes addressable. We can do programmatic delivery against that, against those screens. And we can create shoppable moments, brand integrations. It unlocks a huge amount of content opportunities as well because now you can stream live sports, you can stream anything you want on the ground, in the air. So that's where I think we already have an advantage in that we have an amazing audience, an omnichannel offering and hours of attention. We're going to supercharge that attention with incredible content and amazing brand integration opportunities and advertising opportunities.

[A]

We have these rapid fire hot seat questions, not you're not strapped in or anything terrible. Another airline analogy. This is one we like to ask. You know, what is it that you're obsessed with figuring out right now about the marketplace you're in?

[C]

I'm obsessed with, I think, just continuing to find out more about the audience that we get to engage with every day. I have the pleasure of not only being head of marketing for Connected Media, but but also Mileage Plus. And so I'm curious every day about how I can understand more about our loyal customers, how we can enrich their experiences with us and enrich their lives more broadly. Because again, it doesn't stop with the journey from mileage. How do we engage with them in authentic and compelling ways in a very noisy media marketplace, but also try and get them to continue to think about MileagePlus and the airline on a more regular basis, not just when they have to travel.

[B]

Yeah. What would you say is missing from the market and needs to be solved?

[C]

What's missing from the market? I don't think it's missing. It just needs to continue to evolve. And that's measurement. I think no one's cracked the code. It feels like every time we get close, the goalposts move a little bit. And as more and more first party data driven networks crop up, it becomes more and more relevant for us to solve the attribution game. And I think even when I understood retail media networks to be the answer to all of that because of closed loop attribution, my understanding is that is still not figured out. That's not, still not solved. And if retailers who operate at that lower, you know, lower end of the funnel and point of sale haven't figured it out, then that's a. That's challenging for the industry because we've got a long way to go.

[A]

Still, you mentioned you had a favorite. Do you have any favorite airline. Do you have any favorite airline analogies or even jokes?

[C]

I try to avoid the jokes because it's a tricky one. Now. I think a lot of what I talked about today, we were excited to announce it. We're still building. So I would say we're still building the plane while we're flying it.

[A]

That's a good one.

[B]

Yeah, we use that one all the time.

[A]

It's one of the.

[B]

In the.

[A]

It works very well.

[B]

Ad worlds, I would say.

[A]

And that's it for this edition of the Big Impression.

[B]

This show is produced by Molten Heart. Our theme is by Love and Caliber, and our associate producer is Sydney Cairns.

[C]

And remember, we did some analysis around business travelers and noticed that business travelers are actually more likely to respond to advertising than leisure travelers.

[A]

I'm Damien.

[B]

And I'm Elise.

[A]

And we'll see you next time.