How Much Did Delta’s CES Keynote Cost and Was It Worth It?
The Delta Keynote in the MSG Sphere was one of the defining moments of CES2025. 20k CES attendees soared over beautiful global terrain with a birds eye view from a Delta plane cockpit while listening to Delta CEO Ed Bastion. He spoke of a tremendous legacy and future at this special moment in time to a captive audience.
So the big question…was this ~$10-$15 million investment worth it?
How much did the experiential activation cost?
How much did the experiential activation cost?
First off, let’s review the estimated ~$15 million expense and its components. The experience would be most costly at ~$7.5mm led by content production, venue rental, and event staff. Sponsorship and ad buy would follow at ~$4mm driven by CES sponsorship fee. Lastly would be oversight and T&E at ~$3.5mm.
Experience - $7.5mm
$2.00mm Content Production
$1.50mm Venue Rental
$1.50mm Event Staff (incl Security)
$0.50mm Food
$0.50mm Delta One Sweepstakes
$0.50mm Experiential Agency Fee
$0.50mm Tom Brady
$0.50mm Lenny Kravitz
Sponsorship & Ad Buy - $4.0mm
$2.50mm CES Sponsorship Fee
$1.00mm Out Of Home Takeover
$1.00mm Ad Spend
$0.50mm Ad Agency Fee
Oversight and T&E - $3.5mm
$0.75mm Agency Of Record Fee
$0.50mm Strategy Consulting Fee
$0.50mm 1k Employee T&E
$0.50mm Executive T&E
$0.50mm PR Agency Fee
$0.50mm Partner Agency Fees
$0.25mm Uber $20 Vouchers
The ~$15mm may have been reduced to ~$10mm through contributions by Delta’s partners who made joint announcements together during the event. Assuming $0.75mm buy-in by each of these 6 partners, that’s $4.5mm or approximately ⅓ of the total expense offset by these partner investments.
Partnership Announcements
Uber
Airbus
Joby Aviation (Autonomous Aerial Vehicle (“AAVs”))
YouTube (by Google)
Qualtrics (by SAP)
DraftKings
Starlink
Delta got a lot.
Delta’s annual revenue is $61.6 billion of which $3.46 billion is net income (5.6% profit margin). Delta’s annual marketing budget is $347 million which means it spends 10% of net income on marketing; so the ~$10mm-$15mm spent on the Sphere Keynote is approximately 2.9%-4.3% of the entire annual marketing budget in return for a massive PR event, new features launch (Delta Concierge App, 4K HDR OLED Displays), new partnerships launches, technology-forward positioning, 20k attendees activated, mesmerizing content, media amplification, partner management, affiliate/influencer management (Video Creator Ian Bellinger, Blogger Ben Taylor NYC, Film Director Adrian Per (omgadrian), Personal Blog Finding Fiona, etc…). This was the greatest interest searchers had in Delta Airlines over the last twelve months excluding the 1,200 flight cancellations in late July associated with the Crowdstrike outage.
Customer experience took a back seat.
Delta wanted to be perceived as technology forward, customer-centric, and connecting the world. Seems it did alright with the technology forward, not as much with the latter. What really matters for Customer-Centric? Seems the focus should be on ticket prices, nuisance fees, time wasted, comfort, inflight internet quality, and dilution of loyalty point value. But they barely touched on these points.
Airbus spoke about commitment to reduce fuel costs by 25% through fascinating technology like lighter planes and flexible wings; that should have been showcased more to marry technology with what matters, making a big difference with ticket prices and beyond.
Ed Bastion announced partnership with Starlink; there has been a massive decline in inflight internet quality; passengers used to be able to work productively inflight but those days seem to have ended; if Starlink improves inflight internet, that’s a game changer which could have been hugely impactful.
A digital concierge is minimum requirement for airlines; most already have great mobile app functionality; this doesn’t address time wasted and comfort unless you are one of the top 5% who fly enough to earn upgrades or wealthy enough to fly in business or first class who also are less sensitive to ticket prices and nuisance fees; Delta Concierge packages the elite experience for the top 5% and still leaves the other 95% frustrated.
The Uber/Skymiles partnership to extend those loyalty programs are a distraction from the core value prop of earning free flights which is less and less feasible given the earn value.
But it was worth it.
Could Delta have done better, yes. But, it was an incredible marketing program.
In the “sea of sameness” of the awful air travel experience that angers customers daily and that other industries like hotels are following closely, basic differentiation still matters and in this respect Delta went above and beyond. Going to CES was already a bold move; however, instead of spending ~$5mm-$10mm on an enormous booth, Delta took a novel approach to build significant brand awareness around experience, association with leading brands, and PR regarding a vast set of large investments.
So, was it worth it? I think yes. The execution was incredible. They could have more closely tied into what truly matters but they don’t need to provide the best experience; they just need to outperform their rival providers of a mediocre air travel experience. And they have investments in all areas that matter so they can accelerate any of them at almost any time with a reasonable time horizon to maintain and grow the lead just enough.
