{"id":286,"date":"2026-11-02T12:33:07","date_gmt":"2026-11-02T12:33:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wrage-antwort.com\/?p=286"},"modified":"2026-11-02T13:29:41","modified_gmt":"2026-11-02T13:29:41","slug":"awarded-finally-frankfurt-airport-tr-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wrage-antwort.com\/index.php\/2026\/11\/02\/awarded-finally-frankfurt-airport-tr-award\/","title":{"rendered":"Awarded, finally: Frankfurt Airport @ TR Award"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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It finally happened. Frankfurt Airport won its first gold at the global Travel Retail Awards. Best Airport Retail Initiative 2026 \u2013 Terminal 3 Grand Opening Retail Campaign. Very much deserved, I think. For at least three reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first one: Persistence<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shows like the Travel Retail Award or the Frontier Award aren\u2019t necessarily home ground for airports. Primarily, they are shows for large global brands with a focus on selling products in duty free shops worldwide, and for large duty-free operators. Airports are \u201clandlords\u201d, and that says a lot about their role in this game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a way, it\u2019s a reflection of how retail is seen at airports. Unit by unit, activation by activation. You are much more likely to win something when you submit a nice promotion stand in a large duty-free shop than with an airport-wide activation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That doesn\u2019t mean that participation is useless. And sometimes there\u2019s even a chance to win. Like this year. Patience and persistence paid off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The second one: Innovation<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The retail marketing team at FRA is a remarkably courageous bunch. More than three years ago, they agreed to go for full AI on campaign visuals \u2013 at a time when platforms like Midjourney were still somewhere in late infancy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And for the opening of Terminal 3, they deliberately went the opposite way. Art instead of AI. An experience instead of advertising. Something lasting rather than a two-month campaign. The art of Tobias Rehberger, integrated into the customer experience in Terminal 3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In both cases, criticism was easy. Oh, how can you do that, AI kills artists (no, only those who refuse to even touch it)! Come on, anyone can see it\u2019s Midjourney (no you can\u2019t, you only think you can after you\u2019re told)! And then You\u2019re out of your mind, show me the numbers that prove this has a positive effect on our KPIs!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The latter ones are the most fascinating ones. Stick a camera in their face and they will tell you how much airports need to turn the time people spend at them into an experience, and as soon as the red light goes off, they go back to pushing anything that will earn them a quick buck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They deserve to be praised, over in retail marketing, and they deserve to be awarded, if only for their courage to transform and innovate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The third one: Vision<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Winning in one of those two awards will become even more improbable. The airport is increasingly transforming itself out of their categories. While some airports ask Michelin-Star-studded chefs to open a restaurant, FRA is moving forward with an initiative that brings world class chefs to every culinary outlet at the airport that wants to be part of it (spoiler: they all want to).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The art of Tobias Rehberger at Terminal 3 will not be a one-off either. More of his art will be integrated into the customer experience. Just like the FRA DJs project will grow beyond playing music at Terminal 3. Playlists, presents, integration in special events, guest appearances of famous DJs – slowly but steadily, it all keeps growing. And even more importantly: it all converges to create one unique approach to customer experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Will it all pay off? Well, probably not within a quarter or two. This needs a lot of persistence, commitment and consistent management buy-in. What certainly won’t pay off is looking at airport retail like one big price promotion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And 2027?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since we\u2019re talking about awards here today \u2013 it will remain to be seen whether it makes sense to force-fit these concepts into award categories. There is so much to do anyway. Like opening Concourse G in spring. But no, no spoiler there, sorry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just that much: the days of our AI based campaigns are over. Less talk, more action.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It finally happened. Frankfurt Airport won its first gold at the global Travel Retail Awards. Best Airport Retail Initiative 2026 \u2013 Terminal 3 Grand Opening Retail Campaign. Very much deserved, I think. For at least three reasons. The first one: Persistence Shows like the Travel Retail Award or the Frontier Award aren\u2019t necessarily home ground […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[32,41,21,59,33,27,60],"class_list":["post-286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-advertising","tag-customer-experience","tag-frankfurt-airport","tag-frontier-award","tag-marketing","tag-retail-marketing","tag-tr-award","has-post-thumbnail"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wrage-antwort.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wrage-antwort.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wrage-antwort.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wrage-antwort.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wrage-antwort.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wrage-antwort.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":291,"href":"https:\/\/wrage-antwort.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286\/revisions\/291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wrage-antwort.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wrage-antwort.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wrage-antwort.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}