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
There’s one facet of airline branding that’s subtle, yet intensely symbolic. And best of all, it doesn’t cost a thing. It’s the flight number.
In the age of rail, railroads often reserved lower numbers for their most prestigious trains. By the jet age, Pan Am used “flight 1″ for its fabled round-the-world service (flight 2 flew the same route, but in the opposite direction.) The flight an airline designates as “flight 1″ has powerful meaning. It may reflect the airline’s history (as in the cases of Southwest, JetBlue, and American.) Or it might reflect present priorities (as for Air Canada.) Sometimes flight 1 can give you a deep insight into an airline’s soul. And sometimes not.
Read more
Welcome to the first issue of The Work This Week, a weekly roundup of new advertising, identity, and brand experience work from around the airline industry. On TWTW‘s maiden flight, we dissect what it means to be British with British Airways, burn calories for air miles with airBaltic, and rediscover the joy of reading with Qantas.
Read more
I love it when advertisers take the gloves off: Southwest and Delta are “duking it out” in Atlanta. This ought to be interesting…
The smart money says American Airlines will merge with another airline before it emerges from bankruptcy protection. Right now, US Airways seems like the most likely suitor, but Delta is reportedly also considering its options.
Of course, one of the main issues in any merger is what the combined company will be called. As with everything in the airline business, egos get involved. Often the merged carrier takes on the name of the party in the strongest financial position—but not always. US Airways was technically acquired by America West Airlines in 2005, but the combined carrier kept the US Airways name anyway.
And so I open the floor to rampant speculation: will the name “American Airlines” survive a merger? Or is its 78-year history near its end? Some of the merger match-ups after the jump are plausible. Some are patently ridiculous. But when it comes to naming, they all raise interesting questions.
Vote in the polls below, then explain your reasoning in the comments!
Delta Air Lines has switched its Facebook page to the new Timeline view, and added images and films from its history. It’s tastefully done.
Well, the Big Game is less than a week away and, like everyone else, Fly the Branded Skies is taking advantage of the buzz without all the hassle of paying a few million dollars for a sponsorship. This is an index to airline Super Bowl ads of the past 46 years. It draws extensively on Adland’s extensive archive of Super Bowl spots, with a few added in from YouTube. Read more
News leaked this week that United Airlines is polling its current and former employees on which classic livery to feature on a 757 next year. The livery will celebrate the airline’s 85th anniversary. Thanks to @GordonWerner, you can see the five options here. I don’t want to unduly influence the voting, but the Mainliner colours sure look sharp…
When United’s “retrojet” takes to the skies, it will join dozens of other airplanes painted in the bygone colours of dozens of different airlines. It seems almost every airline has a retrojet these days. The trend started ten years ago, and is only gaining momentum. Read more
Most people will tell you that the airline industry changed 32 years ago today—the day Jimmy Carter signed the Airline Deregulation Act.
In fact, there are some people who will tell you that October 24, 1978 was the day everything that ever has changed or ever will change in the airline industry, changed.
Not me. For my money, the day the industry changed was 20 years ago, when Young & Rubicam resigned Trans World Airlines. Read more
Seems the new Delta campaign (credits) already has a second spot (or is this one the first?) Visually, this one has much more impact than the other which, while beautifully shot, was a little generic. In terms of the content, though, “Human Factor” is a lot less daring. It turns out the challenges Delta faces are not of its own making—they are “every airline’s reality.” Don’t blame Delta.
There are two ways to look at this spot. Read more
