The battle for AI search starts before the prompt, urges Icelandair marketing chief

Gísli Brynjolfsson says airlines need to build brands people already know

The battle for visibility in AI-powered travel search begins "long before" a traveller types a prompt, according to Icelandair’s director of global marketing, Gísli Brynjolfsson. 

His view - that airlines must build brands people already know, remember and feel something about if they want to be considered when customers turn to AI for travel advice - backs up the priority for the airline, to build a "distinctive" brand that people already recognise and have an emotional connection with before they seek a recommendation.

Achieving this requires airlines to compete for attention with everything else appearing in customers’ feeds, he warns, including user-generated content, not just other carriers.

The approach taken by the Icelandic national carrier has recently informed two campaigns, that explored the growing uncertainty around what people see online and whether they can trust it. 

People are increasingly surrounded by polished, perfect and generated content, creating a growing desire for experiences and stories that feel genuine and human, the brand believes.

Brynjolfsson traced the first idea to a photograph of a volcanic eruption beneath the Northern Lights, which prompted Facebook users to debate whether the image was genuine. 

The reaction inspired a video campaign featuring a sceptic who refuses to believe Iceland’s landscapes are real.

“Branding has never been as important as it is today because, at least on our side, no one really understands how AI search will develop. 

"Going back to the basics and truly believing that the brand is the strongest thing that you can have in your toolkit is very relevant at the moment,” he said.

“The biggest challenge today is getting attention. You can’t just put out another destination with a price, that’s not going to cut it. You have to be way more interesting,” he said.

“There’s too much fake, AI-generated content out there, and people are just becoming tired of it. They’re craving something authentic, something that’s genuinely real, and we felt that this was a very natural space for Icelandair to play in."

The same insight informed Icelandair’s ‘Really Bad Photographer’ campaign, which invited ordinary people who considered themselves terrible photographers to apply for the chance to capture Iceland’s scenery. The idea was to prove that Iceland does not need perfection to look extraordinary.

Alongside its creative side, technology remains "integral" to Icelandair’s marketing approach, it said. 

It uses search behaviour, website activity, booking data, social listening and brand tracking to understand demand and identify potential audiences. 

Brynjolfsson believes these tools should help marketers understand people better and strengthen the human connection with the brand. 

“Technology should make marketing more human, not less,” he added.