Archive for January, 2012

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Jingle: American “Doing What We Do Best” (1975)

Tuesday, January 31st, 2012

We're American Airlines. Doing what we do best.
[sc_embed_player fileurl=”http://brandedskies.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Doing-What-We-Do-Best.mp3″ title=”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.

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Tropes: Graduation Day

Wednesday, January 25th, 2012

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.

Let’s start in the late 1960s.

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Jingle: Southwest “Lone Star Anthem” (1990)

Tuesday, January 24th, 2012

Southwest Airlines

[sc_embed_player fileurl=”http://brandedskies.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Lone-Star-One.mp3″ title=”Southwest Airlines: “Lone Star Anthem””]

I lived in Texas for two years. It’s a cliché now, but it really is a whole other country. And even now, with a route network that spans the U.S., Southwest Airlines is still that whole other country’s flag carrier.

Southwest started flying in 1971, serving only cities in Texas to avoid federal regulation and the Civil Aeronautics Board. For its 20th anniversary, the airline decided to show its appreciation to its home state by painting one of its 737s with a Texas flag and naming it “Lone Star One.”

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Sunday, January 22nd, 2012

From November of 1990, a fascinating account in Texas Monthly of the pitch for the Southwest Airlines account. When the straight-laced culture of The Richards Group went up against the freewheeling culture of GSD&M, is it any wonder who won?

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Jingle: United “Fly the Friendly Skies” (1965)

Saturday, January 21st, 2012

Fly the friendly skies of United.
[sc_embed_player fileurl=”http://brandedskies.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Fly-the-Friendly-Skies.mp3″ title=”United Air Lines: “Fly the Friendly Skies””]

“Fly the Friendly Skies” is without question the best-known airline tagline of all time, and it oughta be. United used it for more than 30 years.

That in itself is rare. Even rarer is the fact that for all those years, United employed the same advertising agency: Leo Burnett, Chicago.

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Saturday, January 21st, 2012

Draftfcb has been appointed Air New Zealand’s lead advertising agency. Saatchi will also be on the airline’s roster. Draft takes over from the Clemenger Group, whose advertising for Air NZ was often bizarre; a month ago, the agency killed off the airline’s weird, foreign, furry spokesman, Rico. Oh, and there were those conjoined sheep twins…

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Thursday, January 19th, 2012

Duke University has put the archives of the Outdoor Advertising Association of America online. They comprise 16,000 photographs of billboards and other out-of-home advertising from 1885 to the 1990s, including hundreds of airline ads.

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Thursday, January 19th, 2012

The Atlantic has a gallery of TWA posters from the 1950s and 60s, all designed by the illustrator David Klein, who died in 2005. The posters are all stunning. His poster for TWA flights to New York is so iconic, it’s part of the collection of the Museum of Modern Art.

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Thursday, January 19th, 2012

Agency news that’s better late than never: Lufthansa announced in December that its new agency will be Kolle Rebbe, Hamburg. The German independent replaces McCann-Erickson Berlin. A new campaign is expected in March.

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Jingle: National Airlines “Watch Us Shine” (1977)

Thursday, January 19th, 2012

National Airlines: Watch Us Shine

[sc_embed_player fileurl=”http://brandedskies.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/watchusshine.mp3″ title=”National Airlines: “Watch Us Shine””]

If there’s one thing airline jingles are selling, it’s pride.

Most jingles, I think, evince a grandeur disproportionate to their subjects. But the songs of airline advertising are not mere jingles. They are anthems worthy of companies that dare slip the surly bonds of earth and touch the face of God.

Whether this is a good way to sell tickets is another question.

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