Visual Logic
2025
Designing new ad units for passengers, in-flight
Introduction
Viasat is a satellite internet provider that provides internet to 250 million passengers across 60+ airlines globally. As a UX Designer at Visual Logic, I worked with Viasat’s advertising product team to build out their emerging product — advertising in-flight.
The value of an ad unit is different for advertisers, airlines, passengers, and the experience it sits in. The balance between these factors gave us the challenging constraints that guided the process.
The Approach
As Viasat scales their ad product, brands and advertisers expect more and more capabilities.
A survey unit offers a window to customer data that was previously impossible to collect in-flight.
Often, advertisers launch a survey in order to gather data on brand perception. Because of this, a survey unit folds in perfectly across Viasat’s existing product as a premium offering to a campaign through Viasat.
The survey unit’s placement is at the critical moment in a captive audience’s engagement: the waiting period before connecting.
Through testing, the value of the passenger data increases with in how easy it is to use — if there’s a clear path forward, passengers are more likely to be honest in responses, rather than rage clicking their way through, compromising data.
Impact
Increased potential revenue with premium "add-on" framework for existing advertising products, creating a new high-tier inventory for airline partners.
Boosted passenger engagement by designing an interactive, choice-based ad unit as a high-performance alternative to traditional video-driven experiences.
Matured targeting data through a survey-focused ad unit, generating actionable user insights that drive future content and product development.