Alaska Airlines - That's How We Fly

Alaska Airlines - That's How We Fly

The Alaska Airlines / Virgin America take-over has already been featured in two editions this year. In January, we talked about “Different Works”, an advertising campaign by Alaska Airlines that celebrated the merger with Virgin America by trying to show that pairings that don’t seem immediately obvious can work.

In April, the decision by Alaska to retire the Virgin brand but co-opt a few of its features led to the ‘West Coast Vibe’ campaign. At the time, this resulted in a certain amount of scepticism, with tech publication Techcrunch (whose readers would have been active Virgin America fans) commenting - “it’s usually not a good sign when companies think they can slap some mood lights on something and recreate a culture that’s unique from any other company in their industry.”

Fast forward to November, and Alaska has now rolled out a third campaign that seeks to clear up “misconceptions” about the airline. The campaign, called “That’s How We Fly.”

In the first spot, ‘That’s how we fly’, the airline talks about the fact that being called Alaska doesn’t mean they “fly lumberjacks to glaciers”, but instead they fly a whole range of people such as “app developers to Mexico city”, “musically inclined novelists to Nashville” and “pilates instructors to Palm Springs.”

‘FOMO No’ highlights on-board features such as free online chat. ‘From San Diego on up’ talks about low fares, using a startup boss as an example, while ‘Glocal’ mentions airline alliances that mean you can book and fly globally.

The new campaign is set to run six to eight weeks, first on TV/video and on a variety of social mediums including Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube on Friday, November 10. It was created by Mekanism, the creative agency that was appointed by the airline at the end of last year.

Separately, the soon to be retired Virgin America brand won the award for ‘best US airline’ in the Readers’ Choice Awards for the tenth year running. Alaska Airlines took the third spot.

KEY TAKE-AWAY

The merger with Virgin America and Alaska’s expanded route network clearly means there is a need to educate potential new customers on who or what Alaska Airlines is - in particular that the airline doesn’t only fly to that US State.

At the same time, we wondered if the ad spots weren’t trying too hard to be aspirational and ‘cool.’ After all, most passengers are unlikely to be startup bosses flying to San Jose, let alone pilates instructors going to Palm Beach.

They are obviously much more likely to be parents with kids visiting the grandparents for thanksgiving, or a small business owner travelling to Seattle. Possibly more ‘real’ and relatable examples would have worked better here.