Air Canada Launches Free At-Home Streaming Service

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, consuming content at home has become more popular, and Air Canada was the first airline to address this opportunity. By leveraging CineSend's technology, members of Air Canada's loyalty program can now access over 200 titles, with more to come in the future.

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Challenge

Air Canada recognized that other airlines, including their own subsidiary Air Canada Rouge, offered in-flight streaming, but there was no way for customers to continue the experience once they disembarked. The COVID-19 pandemic made this gap in the customer experience even more apparent, as many Aeroplan members were unable to fly during that time. As a result, Air Canada wanted to find a way to engage these customers at home.

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Air Canada needed a web platform that would allow them to securely offer their own in-flight movie library for home viewing. The platform had to match the look and feel of their onboard entertainment systems, but the biggest challenge was how to deliver the content securely without in-flight supervision. This was crucial to the business because if the content could be easily watched at home, it could theoretically also be easily pirated and leaked to the internet.

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This is part of our overall ‘Travel at Home’ campaign. We wanted to bring a bit of the Air Canada flight experience to their homes… the user interface looks a lot like our onboard in-flight entertainment.

Anton Vidgen, Director of Brand Experience @ Air Canada

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Solution

To start, we integrated Air Canada's Aeroplan memberships with CineSend's membership feature to control access to certain content. Aeroplan members received an email inviting them to use the at-home streaming service, while non-members could sign up to get immediate access to the platform.

Once the access policy was in place, we wanted to present the content in a way that was familiar to Air Canada's frequent flyers. Our technology allowed Air Canada to organize their entire library according to their own categories and naming conventions.

Using advanced customization options, Air Canada was able to set their own colors, fonts, buttons, and spacing, which minimized the gap between the in-flight and at-home experiences.

Once the access policy was in place, we wanted to present the content in a way that was familiar to Air Canada's frequent flyers. Our technology allowed Air Canada to organize their entire library according to their own categories and naming conventions.

Using advanced customization options, Air Canada was able to set their own colors, fonts, buttons, and spacing, which minimized the gap between the in-flight and at-home experiences.

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In the background, all content is actively DRM-protected and watermarked forensically. While the watermark is not visible, it’s possible to trace leaked content back to the responsible party. CineSend’s forensic watermarking is powered by Nagra NexGuard, the gold standard in forensic video technology.

CineSend is also providing analytics services to help Air Canada assess its at-home streaming platform. Air Canada can access stats like which titles were watched, how long they were watched for, what a user watched and how many views each title had. There are analytics for the ads as well.

The advertising component is be limited and similar to the in-flight entertainment experience. Ads are be shown at the beginning of the film and will only be targeted based on whether the viewer is accessing the portal in English or French. Since the platform supports both languages, the ads are shown in the relevant language for each viewer. There are no banner ads on the GUI itself.

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As a premium global airline, Air Canada must always innovate to offer compelling products and services to our discerning customers. CineSend has been a highly innovative and flexible partner and has helped our airline deliver an industry-first with at-home streaming of in-flight entertainment content. We look forward to working with CineSend on future innovations.

Anton Vidgen, Director of Brand Experience @ Air Canada

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Takeaways

• Air Canada has partnered with CineSend to offer a streaming service for its loyalty program members
• The service allows customers to continue the in-flight entertainment experience at home
• The platform matches the look and feel of the in-flight entertainment system and is customised for Air Canada
• The content is DRM-protected and watermarked to prevent piracy
• CineSend is providing analytics services to Air Canada and there is a limited advertising component similar to in-flight entertainment
• The platform supports both English and French and ads are targeted based on the viewer's language preference.

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