JetBlue - Office Souvenirs

JetBlue - Office Souvenirs

Last year British airline Virgin Atlantic created a holiday video around a brand new destination - the office - featuring elements such as the microwave (the local cuisine) and the parking lot out the back window (the view)

The idea was to convey the fact that 1/3 of British workers don’t take their full holiday entitlement, which according to Virgin, made the office the UK’s most popular holiday destination.

Average US holiday / vacation allowances are of course much limited than is the case in Europe, meaning the average office worker spends even more time in front of her or his desks.

As a result, JetBlue has taken the theme of office workers who never get away, but provided a different twist on it. A collection of “Office Souvenirs” available to buy on the JetBlue website highlight different aspects of office culture in a uniquely kitschy way.

For example, there is a “spreadsheet towel”, a “printer snow globe” and “Circle Back mug”.

The items are funny, but they are intended to get across a serious point. What kind of memories do we want to have? Memories of us sitting late at night in the office, or memories of us going on vacation somewhere different?

Or as Amy Ferguson from ad agency MullenLowe explains:

We came across the fact that 91 percent of people agree that some of their best memories are from vacation. And yet, as a country, we’ve stopped going on vacation. That begged the question: What kind of memories are we making? The answer must be boring work memories. That’s when Office Souvenirs was born.

The ‘souvenirs’ have been promoted via a series of Instagram ads, and through a partnership with Reddit where they were promoted on travel and office sub- Reddits.

There was also a pop-up shop in NYC for a day, where the items were on sale. Meanwhile, different items ranging from a “water cooler” water bottle to a “Nice dongle” baseball cap are on sale at the JetBlue online store.

Key Take-Away

This is a smart and funny campaign that ties into a truism that most office workers can relate to. We spend a lot of our waking lives in the office, white collar work has a very distinct office culture and a lot of memories are formed at our desks.

But are they the kind of memories we want to be left with? Like the Virgin Atlantic campaign in the UK, JetBlue’s US campaign seeks to grab office workers’ attention in a light hearted way and actually get them to see something different for a week or two every year - naturally with JetBlue.