Overview
Cathay, Hong Kong’s flagship airline, is on a bold journey to transform itself into a premium travel lifestyle brand. With ambitions beyond aviation, the business is reimagining customer experience through a data-driven lens, leveraging real-time personalisation, omni-channel engagement, and deep customer insight. Tealium has played a foundational role in enabling this evolution, helping Cathay pivot during the pandemic and come back stronger than ever.
The Challenge
When COVID-19 brought global aviation to a halt, Cathay faced a crisis but also an opportunity to rebuild. The marketing team needed to:
- Scale personalisation efforts despite reduced headcount and shifting budgets
- Enable faster, more frequent experimentation to stay relevant with grounded customers
- Empower cross-functional teams (marketing, loyalty, product, analytics) with access to real-time data
Despite already having a CDP in place, the team realised they needed to go further, to unify customer data across touch points, automate manual processes, and reduce reliance on engineering resources.
“We knew we had the infrastructure. Now it was time to unlock its full potential and reimagine how we used data.”
Aldric Chau
General Manager, Digital, Cathay
The Solution
Working with Tealium, Cathay evolved from early CDP adoption to enterprise-wide data orchestration. Tealium’s real-time infrastructure enabled:
- Unified customer profiles across loyalty, marketing, and operational systems
- Rapid experimentation at scale, with over 100 personalisation use cases launched annually
- Channel-agnostic Activation, including seamless integrations with Adobe, Salesforce, Meta, and internal platforms
- Operational enablement, allowing non-technical teams to build, test, and launch journeys independently
This strategic evolution wasn’t just about technology. It was about changing the way teams collaborated and made decisions.
Key Outcomes:
- Real-Time Personalisation at Scale
From welcome journeys to lifestyle offers, Cathay now runs high-frequency, targeted campaigns using live customer signals, boosting engagement and retention. - Faster Time-to-Market
With Tealium, what once took weeks now takes less than a few days. Teams can quickly validate new ideas without heavy reliance on dev teams. - Test-and-Learn Built into Every Campaign
Experimentation is now a core part of campaign design. From app nudges to media formats, the team continuously tests to optimise engagement and performance across channels. - Smarter, Channel-Agnostic Engagement
Recognising that owned channels (e.g. email, app) aren’t always best for every customer, Cathay uses paid media to re-engage opt-out customers—ensuring continued connection with valuable audiences. - 9× Increase in Site Visits, 53× Uplift in Conversion
Paid media campaigns targeting previously unreachable (opt-out) users delivered a 9× uplift in site visits and a 53× increase in pillar conversions, quarter on quarter. - 7× Higher CTR from Real-Time Segments in Owned Channels
On Cathay Shop, audiences built using real-time behavioural data drove a 7× higher click-through rate to specific product pages compared to segments built from profile or transactional data—with identical messaging. - Improved Operational Efficiency
Automation and centralised data activation reduced duplication and enabled better resource planning across teams. - Data-Driven Decision Making
Marketers, product owners, and CX leaders now make informed decisions based on a unified customer view, improving agility and campaign performance. - Customer Trust & Privacy Compliance
Data collection and usage are now transparent, traceable, and adaptable to regional compliance requirements, helping build customer trust.
Why Tealium?
Cathay has partnered with Tealium for over 13 years, making it one of the longest-standing customer relationships in the region. The flexibility of Tealium’s platform means Cathay can integrate with any system, test fast, and scale globally, all without compromising data quality or privacy.
“Tealium has helped us turn data into real-time action. We’ve moved from siloed systems and manual processes to a connected ecosystem where teams across the business can personalise experiences at speed and scale—all while staying compliant and building trust with our customers.”
Aldric Chau
General Manager, Digital, Cathay
What’s Next?
Cathay is investing HKD 100 billion over seven years in new aircraft, digital capabilities, and expanding its network to 100+ destinations. But it’s not just about flying. It’s about evolving into a travel lifestyle brand that customers choose again and again.
With Tealium, Cathay is set to deepen loyalty relationships, launch new digital experiences, and power hyper-personalised journeys across Asia-Pacific and beyond.
To hear more about Cathay’s journey, watch their Digital Velocity keynote session here
