How Super.com Turned TSA Traffic into Real Conversions

Author

Carlo Palomino
February 27, 2026

Welcome to The Friday Fortune! If your Q1 strategy deck is open in one tab and flights to somewhere warmer are open in another, we see you. This is your official permission slip for productive procrastination. Grab a coffee, pretend you’re “researching consumer trends,” and let’s talk about the kind of marketing that actually makes people stop mid-scroll, and mid-sprint through TSA.

Each week, we bring you smart brand moves, bold experiments, and marketing ideas that actually make you stop and think, “Okay… that’s clever.”

This week’s edition is no different. Let’s talk airport marketing.

Airport advertising is, at its heart, a confidence game.

Every brand walks in believing this will be the one. The towering digital wall. The wraparound LED above security. The unmissable screen near Gate 12. And then, reality sets in.

No one goes to the airport to discover your brand. They are there to get somewhere. They are scanning boarding passes, refreshing airline apps with caffeinated intensity, and calculating if they have time for a Cinnabon before Group 7 vanishes. In an airport, attention isn’t scarce. It’s pre-allocated.

Enter Super.com

This is the environment Super.com stepped into. On paper, they have a rock-solid case: real savings on hotels and flights, stackable perks, and clear utility. It’s practical, not conceptual. But even practical value has a hard time surviving a terminal. A great offer can still disappear if the moment is wrong.

So, instead of adding another glowing terminal outside TSA security to the visual noise, Super.com changed the delivery system.

They recognized that the airport marketing game hasn’t changed in years. So, instead of fighting for attention on a wall, they decided to put it directly in the traveler’s hand.

In a nationwide campaign across 20 major airports and hundreds of restaurants throughout NYC, Super.com and OpenFortune launched a calculated, multi-layered strike.

In airports, it wasn't about shouting over the noise but rather the "orchestrated" hand-off:

  • The Setup: They ran high-impact video ads on 50-inch digital displays at retail point-of-sale locations.

  • The Hand-off: At the register, travelers grabbed a premium-wrapped Super.com fortune cookie.

  • The Result: Travelers took that cookie to their gate and opened the message while sitting and waiting for their flight, exactly when they finally had the headspace to engage.

The Strategy of Stillness

Airports are defined by motion, until they aren’t. Eventually, the sprinting stops. You find your gate. You settle into a restaurant. The urgency fades into that specific brand of airport stillness where time stretches and people reach for their phones, their snacks, or whatever happens to be directly in front of them.

That’s where the cookie comes in.

It doesn’t compete with a departures board. It arrives after the scramble. It’s opened by choice, not avoidance. And inside was a simple, well-timed incentive: a QR code to unlock savings on the next leg of the journey.

The Results

The difference between an "interruption" and an "invitation" showed up clearly in the data:

  • Unaided brand recall reached 70%.

  • QR scan rates hit 7%—a staggering jump from the 0.1% seen in prior NYC taxi screen placements.

  • 16% of recipients immediately searched the brand online.

In New York City restaurants, the campaign did something even harder to manufacture: it sparked actual conversation. 70% of diners discussed the brand after opening their cookie. This level of engagement doesn’t happen because a creative is louder; it happens because the environment finally allows space for it.

There is one point that I really want to hammer home here. 7% QR code scan in airports. That is UNHEARD of and compared to 0.1% in a head-to-head test with the NYC taxi screen?



Yes the data is crazy, but it's more telling about the situation and the medium.

Think about the back of a taxi. You are rushing through the city. You are staring at your phone. You aren't paying attention to that screen. Most of the time, you’re just annoyed by it.

Now think about the fortune cookie.

You just enjoyed a great meal. You’re relaxed and chatting with friends. You open the cookie as a treat. You actually read the message. You have the time and the headspace to notice the QR code and scan it.

One is a forced interruption. The other is a shared ritual.

If you are a brand still spending millions on screens that people are trying to ignore, it’s time to look at the numbers.

Context matters. Always has, always will.

If you're interested in doing the same for your brand, let’s crack open a cookie and chat.

Crack open a handful of the week’s best marketing links—because good fortune favors the curious.

That’s a wrap for this week’s Friday fortune.

If you enjoyed the read, pass it along to your favorite marketer who could use a little extra inspo in their inbox.

Until next time, may your marketing be memorable and your cookies always be fortunate!

— The OpenFortune team