In this episode of The Big Impression, we’re joined by James Rothwell, managing director of brand marketing at Kinective Media. Rothwell walks us through what’s changed since launch — from major brand partnerships and custom content integrations to a headline-making alliance with JetBlue. With over 110 million traveler profiles and 63 million MileagePlus members, Kinective is fast becoming one of the most compelling new players in commerce media.
In this episode of The Big Impression, we’re joined by James Rothwell, managing director of brand marketing at Kinective Media. Rothwell walks us through what’s changed since launch — from major brand partnerships and custom content integrations to a headline-making alliance with JetBlue. With over 110 million traveler profiles and 63 million MileagePlus members, Kinective is fast becoming one of the most compelling new players in commerce media.
Episode Transcript
Please note, this transcript may contain minor inconsistencies compared to the episode audio.
Damian Fowler (00:00):
I'm Damian Fowler.
Ilyse Liffreing (00:01):
And I'm Ilyse Liffreing.
Damian Fowler (00:02):
And welcome to this edition of The Big Impression.
Ilyse Liffreing (00:09):
Today we're checking back in on one of the boldest moves in airline media, connected media by United Airlines as they've redefined what's possible in the world of Traveler Media Networks.
Damian Fowler (00:22):
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.
Ilyse Liffreing (00:38):
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. So let's get into it.
Damian Fowler (00:57):
So James, this time last year, United had just launched Connective Media. It was June, 2024 at CAN, 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?
James Rothwell (01:20):
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 on,
Damian Fowler (02:08):
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 endemics.
James Rothwell (02:17):
No, absolutely. I think 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 the, I mean, they were cooped up for quite a while there, and so travel's never been more popular. Like any industry, you've got to break through the noise and the options that you have out there. Right? World's a big place.
(02:43):
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 were able to track that and they saw a 13 times return on an ad spend against that campaign. We were incredibly happy with that. They were incredibly happy with that. We obviously made some travelers very happy to go enjoy the wonderful blues ocean around the Cayman Islands.
Damian Fowler (03:58):
Yeah, there's something nice when you see that on screen. You're
James Rothwell (04:01):
Like that, I'm going to go there. Yeah, that looks nice. That one sells itself. It
Ilyse Liffreing (04:05):
Does. So you mentioned non-endemic brands too. That's really interesting.
James Rothwell (04:09):
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 certainly it helps to give context and potentially 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 and 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, they're looking to find those individuals and we can find 'em on the planes in the clubs and through different digital channels as well. And so that's been a really interesting sector that 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 results there.
Ilyse Liffreing (05:16):
Very cool. Could you describe that a little bit more, how, I guess you worked almost in a custom way, it sounds like With Jira
James Rothwell (05:26):
For that 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 inflight 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.
Ilyse Liffreing (05:56):
We spoke with Mike Petre on this podcast just about a year ago, A week after you guys
James Rothwell (06:02):
Launched. That's right.
Ilyse Liffreing (06:03):
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
James Rothwell (06:12):
Where to start? 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 Mileage Plus comes into our overall offering, but if you sign up for Spotify Premium, there's a Mileage Plus component to that. We are the first airline to offer audio books 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 is been a real, it's been very successful in terms of not only helping to drive awareness of those campaigns and those opportunities for Mileage plus 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 mileage plus members the opportunity to earn miles as they buy tickets to entertainment. But you can imagine a world where for those types of companies, we know where those individuals are going to
(07:41):
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, we 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 is really limitless in terms of what the opportunity is there.
Damian Fowler (08:08):
Let me just ask you, partnerships like this seem hugely valuable in this space. What else are you seeing?
James Rothwell (08:15):
One of the partnerships that 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, a 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, et cetera. 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 complimentary 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 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.
Damian Fowler (09:36):
And when you talk about at scale, you've got 63 million mileage plus members, so that's a
James Rothwell (09:42):
Serious, yeah. And 174 passengers over the year. I think JetBlue is around 40, so
Damian Fowler (09:49):
74 million. Yeah.
James Rothwell (09:50):
Yeah, 174 million. And then you add 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. That's a serious proposition.
Ilyse Liffreing (10:00):
Yeah, it's a great partnership really in a lot of ways. Almost a surprising one too, because you guys are competitors but are also helping each other out in ways. And
James Rothwell (10:13):
Again, it's a very complimentary partnership. I think they're strong in places where we don't have the same coverage. 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 'em competitor. I would call 'em a pier,
(10:35):
A pier into the garden. And this is not a walled garden. This is an anti-Wall garden straight. 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.
Damian Fowler (11:14):
Yeah, yeah. We like that idea that especially when we look at advertisers and media buyers, the idea that everyone benefits from partnerships like this, so it's not like we're it locking you out. That idea of opening up, it's the value prop for media buys is huge.
James Rothwell (11:35):
Yeah, it's very new. So we're still figuring out all of the logistics. It'll start on the back seat screens and offsite, how we 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 offsite later in the year. And then moving on to Seatback screens in 2026.
Damian Fowler (12:01):
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 working? What kind of visibility do you have?
James Rothwell (12:20):
So we work with a number of different measurement partners, Kantar di nata. We've just started working with Adelaide, which is an attention based measuring partner. And recent tests on that is looking pretty good. You can imagine we do have people literally strapped in by their seat belts 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 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. 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'll integrate more and more of those partners so that again, measurability and measurement is enabled for all in the ways that they want.
Ilyse Liffreing (13:29):
Very cool. You were talking about how connective is offering omnichannel measurement. Are there any surprises that came out of that analysis so far?
James Rothwell (13:41):
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 are a business traveler, your company's paying for your flight, your hotel, 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'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 spend some money on that brand. Obviously there's always the opportunity for those people who've got their sunglasses and making that a 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. They're more likely to be frequent flyers, right?
(14:54):
But I think they may be a little bit more attuned to the environment they're in as opposed to maybe a leisure traveler or AER traveler who's going with their family and they're having to look after the kids. They're a little distracted, or maybe they're zoning out because 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 insight and that response.
Ilyse Liffreing (15:24):
And to me, it does sound like there's B2B brands are having kind of a moments, and I think this is across all categories, but it sounds like you're seeing that too, that B2B brands are even driven to the plane beer.
James Rothwell (15:40):
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 from 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.
Damian Fowler (16:14):
Quick question here. On that note, do you have any brand partnerships with sports teams
James Rothwell (16:18):
At the United level? We do. We work with a number of different teams across the nation, obviously usually associated a lot 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, 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 we help you out with that, or you can cancel your flight and don't worry about it. We will take care of you if your team crashes out.
Damian Fowler (16:55):
Moving on here, to zoom out a little bit and look at the landscape, the big picture, as it were from, should we say 30,000 feet? Let's do it. Terrible. I love it. You wouldn't believe how many plane analogy Canal. Get the pun every, I'm sure you can every day. Lemme ask you for your favorite plane analogy at the end of
James Rothwell (17:10):
Something,
Damian Fowler (17:11):
But you've likened connectives personalization to Netflix's style recommendation engine, but with rich 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?
James Rothwell (17:28):
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 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 30,000 feet. 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, 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 30,000 feet. And so you think about what that means from an advertising perspective, every screen becomes addressable. We can do programmatic delivery against those
Speaker 4 (18:53):
Screens
James Rothwell (18:54):
And we can create shoppable moments, brand integrations. It unlocks a huge amount of content opportunities as well. 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.
Damian Fowler (19:25):
We have these rapid fire hot seat questions. You're not strapped in or anything, sorry. Terrible. Another airline analogy. This is one we like to ask. What is it that you are obsessed with figuring out right now about the marketplace you're in?
James Rothwell (19:40):
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 I 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 others. 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 Mileage Plus and the airline on a more regular basis, not just when they have to travel.
Ilyse Liffreing (20:29):
Yeah. What would you say is missing from the market and needs to be solved?
James Rothwell (20:37):
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 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 solved. And if retailers who operate at that lower end of the funnel and point of sale haven't figured it out, then that's challenging for the industry because we've got a long way to go still.
Damian Fowler (21:21):
You mentioned you had a favorite. Do you have any favorite airline? Do you have any favorite airline analogies or even jokes?
James Rothwell (21:29):
I try to avoid the jokes because that's a tricky one. No, 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.
Damian Fowler (21:42):
That's a good one. Yeah.
Ilyse Liffreing (21:42):
Yeah, we use that one all the time.
Damian Fowler (21:46):
In the business, it works very well.
Ilyse Liffreing (21:48):
Bad worlds, I would say.
Damian Fowler (21:54):
And that's it for this edition of The Big Impression.
Ilyse Liffreing (21:56):
This show is produced by Molten Hart. Our theme is by Love and caliber, and our associate producer is Sydney Cairns.
James Rothwell (22:03):
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.
Damian Fowler (22:15):
I'm Damian. And I'm Ilyse. And we'll see you next time.