One of the side effects of watching too much football over the holidays is that you also get to see a lot of Southwest Airlines’ commercials — the result of Southwest being an official sponsor of the NFL.
Interestingly, most of the spots I’ve seen over the last two weeks have been older “wanna get away” spots.
However, there was one spot that did not fit.
I had read that the airline planned to roll out a new advertising/marketing campaign in support of their new “business traveler” push this next week, as part of their BCS Bowl series sponsorship.
Well, last week, I think someone either goofed in spot scheduling at one of the networks — or there was a deliberate early look scheduled of a commercial that appears to be tied to the new, as yet unveiled Southwest Airlines campaign. The commercial, which was a little strange, pointed viewers to a web site.
Wanna see the site?
Here you go. Don’t say I didn’t give you anything for Christmas.
Yes, you can see a video of the same commercial I saw on the site. There is absolutely no ID on the site that ties the site to Southwest Airlines— but I don’t think I was hallucinating when I saw “Southwest Airlines” in small print on the ad when it first ran.
I’m mute about all of this for now — need to see how it all fits together this week. But clearly the concept is that flying the “new” Southwest will make you more productive.
Guess I need to send the New Orleans Saints on an “around the country” tour on Southwest if that is the case.
Oh well. There’s always next season.
Ticker: (NYSE:LUV)
The APA ’07 banner on the screenshot has now been replaced with a “Brought To You By Southwest Airlines” banner.
A couple of things. Yes, I did see that as well — and frankly last week when I first saw that APA 07 banner ad, my immediate thought was “APA?” Like, “Allied Pilots Association?” I mean, that is certainly what we in the airline industry associate “APA” with.
The ads that ran this week also had the bigger Southwest Airlines logo at the tail of them. They weren’t hiding the fact anymore.
My question to those of you who have seen these commercials is this – do you get it?
I mean, I can figure out what they are up to — it’s a classic tease campaign, one in which more details will be released as time goes by.
But you know, first, I’m somewhat perplexed as to who the airline thinks their target market is, given the nature of these spots. Next question I have is this one. Do these spots make sense to that target market? Finally, I’m not sure that these spots make much sense to most people.
The “mental leap” from these to Southwest Airlines, I would argue, is still not apparent to most people — and if that is the case, then what’s the point?
I have a very bottomline view of advertising, after observing way too many “overly creative” attempts over the years in many different industries.
If it doesn’t give you a suitable bang for the buck with your target market right out of the chute, then why are you doing it?
Interestingly, I just saw a rerun of the two more recent United Airlines’ spots over the Christmas holidays. The one with the woman traveler and the animals who turn into humans, and the one in which the male traveler is in Hong Kong.
They’ve held up well — and while I still wonder if the airline had to spend all that money (those ads were very expensive to produce), there’s no question that the messages they send and the well-executed, if expensive, images, hit squarely at the airline’s target business traveler market.
These things from Southwest don’t seem to be doing that. Maybe it’s a basic issue I have with centering an airline advertising campaign around the concept of “productivity.” Maybe it’s because I have to believe that most people don’t have a clue as to what they are about. To me, that’s wasted money.
I await the next round. But so far, I’m well, less than overwhelmed.
I’m glad I’m not the only one that saw that ad and cocked my head to the side and then immediately went to the computer to check the website out. I suppose I have to give it to the admen seeing as I *did* get up off the couch after seeing the ad, but between the ad and the website I’m underwhelmed. It reminds me a bit of the Frontier “Send Flipper to Mexico” campaign, minus the campaign connection to the airline, brand recognition, clear target audience, and the oh-that-was-kinda-fun part.