benchmark report
airline marketing
we go the extra smile
tv, print, ooh
southwest heart SOUTHWEST
With the merger of Southwest and AirTran well underway, Southwest was going to have to repaint all the existing Boeing 737s from AirTran with their livery anyway, so decided to refresh the brand all together. “We don’t call it a rebranding,” Southwest CCO Bob Jordan said. “We call it a bold new look. It is the natural time to evolve our brand to present a bold and modern look that will reinforce us in the minds of our current customers and draw new people to fly us. They want to see a more modern, bold visual interpretation of Southwest— keeping our unique color palate that breaks up the airline industry’s ‘white’ sea of sameness.” The new brand is called Heart and is based on its employees (who according to Southwest “are serving from the hear t”).
OCTOBER 2014 ISSUE
BRUSSELS AIRLINES
Southwest’s new branding includes a complete overhaul of its livery. Nicknamed ‘Heart One’ , the old “canyon blue” on the livery has been retired for a darker shade, the stripes on the tail have been modified, the fonts brought into the 21st century, and -- most significantly – a yellow, red and blue heart added to the plane’s belly. The hear t logo also appears by the main entry door . Southwest also launched a new commercial which loses a bit of the human touch by focusing heavily an airplane. But the sentiment behind it is beautifully expressed: “Without a hear t, it’s just a machine.”
On September 1st, Brussels Airlines introduced four branded fares on its European flights, saying customers should be able to determine themselves how they want to travel, based on their travel needs and budget. The carrier’s new branded fares range from a basic LCC offering (called ‘check&go’) to a full-service business offering (dubbed ‘biz&class’). To market the new travel products, Brussels Airlines commissioned marketing agency TBWA to work out a fresh new style based on four key words: fresh, simple, Belgian and human. With the four new products Brussels Airlines aims to position itself as a hybrid airline that offers a value-for-money solution for all market segments and budgets, without having to compromise.
The campaign focuses on the things passengers can do indeed (the “do’s”) - such as “do wiggle your legs on board” (plenty of leg space for that), “do sit together,” “do start your holiday on board.” – as there are already too many “don’ts “ passengers have to take into account when travelling by air. The new positioning is accompanied by a print media and out-of-home ad campaign that revolves around the baseline “We go the extra smile,” meaning Brussels Airlines is an airline that goes the extra mile in everything it does to please its guests. According to the airline, “We go the extra smile” is also an important internal company philosophy for all Brussels Airlines employees.
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EXPERIENTIAL DIGITAL SOCIAL TV, PRINT, OOH
