“Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly,” I answer graciously as I recline in my first-class seat, nonstop from New York to Nice. My seat companion, a famous movie star, wants to hear my story about that shoot I went on that one time, but I’ve already delighted her with it seven times and now I grow weary. I settle in for a few hours of blissful slumber.
Yes, fine, you’re right, this flight is only happening in my imagination. For the fourth year in a row, Branded Skies reports on Cannes from nearly 4,000 miles away.
But what a year it has been for airline brands. For the first time since 2009, work for an airline won a Grand Prix. Of course, it won in the least likely category. But that’s Cannes, where a billboard with no response mechanism at all can be crowned the best direct response work of the year.
Welcome to Flyby Wire, a weekly look at new advertising, identity, and brand experience work from around the airline industry. This week: look up! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s British Airways! Read more
Welcome to the sixth issue of The Work This Week, a weekly roundup of new advertising, identity, and brand experience work from around the airline industry. This week, it’s the annual Cannes issue! Who won? Who lost? Who got blackout drunk and passed out on la Croisette? It’s all here! Except for “who lost” and “who got drunk,” because we keep things classy. Read more
Welcome to the fifth issue of The Work This Week, a weekly roundup of new advertising, identity, and brand experience work from around the airline industry. This week, new campaigns from South Africa and Australia, a new look for Air New Zealand, and a new reason to cross the Thames. Read more
Listen: American Airlines: “Doing What We Do Best”
One of the amazing properties of jingles is how they can become integral parts of their brands over time. For example, Alka-Seltzer first used “plop plop, fizz fizz” in the 1950s — today, they’re still using the tune in their advertising.
By holding on to this branding element, you gain the freedom to vary others. This jingle, “We’re American Airlines. Doing what we do best,” is a perfect example. Campaigns evolved, tastes shifted, the tagline changed, and the account even switched agencies, but this melody — or variations derived from it — were a part of American’s advertising for more than 20 years.
Every kind of advertising has—well, let’s call them “conventions.” Airline advertising is no different. This is part of a series of posts on the clichés of airline advertising.
This may not be a pervasive trope, but over the years it has popped up often enough to make for some interesting comparisons: stewardesses graduating from training. These four spots, spanning four decades, tell a lot both about how flight attendants are portrayed in advertising and how they’re seen by society at large.
Every kind of advertising has—well, let’s call them “conventions.” Airline advertising is no different. This is part of a series of posts on the clichés of airline advertising.
There’s an old joke that, when faced with creating advertising, the British crack a joke, the French get naked, and Americans sing.
If that introduction got your hopes up that this post would be full of jokes, or, even better, naked people, I’m sorry to disappoint. No, this post is about singing—something airlines used to do it a lot.
Today, a song in a commercial is far more likely to be licensed than commissioned. But there was a time when jingles were very popular, and no category used them more often than airlines. In fact, airlines may have elevated the jingle to its greatest heights. This one (by Leo Burnett / song credits) is liable to get stuck in your head:
“Champagne, sir?” asks the flight attendant.
