JAL-The Airline on the Dot

JAL - THE AIRLINE ON THE DOT

In November, a Tokyo train company made headlines around the world because of its abject apologies after a train left all of 20 seconds too early. In many people’s minds, this reinforced something Japan is associated with - obsessive time keeping.

Japan Airlines via advertising agency MC Saatchi has taken this concept and blended it with another symbol of Japan - the red sun on the Japanese flag, or red ‘dot.’ The result is a brand campaign, “the airline on the dot.”

The campaign links to the fact that JAL has been the world’s most punctual airline five times. It is supported by an online video and TV ad called ‘Happiness.’ That ad talks about the importance of time when it comes to travel.

‘Happiness’ alternates images of JAL aircraft and passengers and loved ones. It then talks about how “time is precious, for those who fly and those who wait.” The ad then ends with talking about JAL’s excellent on-time record.

According to M&C Saatchi Tokyo CEO Tamio Koshino, “The Airline, On the Dot message trickles down from the rational to the emotional. Whether it’s someone making it on time to a business meeting or a parent arriving in time for their child’s birthday or meeting their loved ones for that special day, it’s about getting passengers to where they need to be safely and on time.”

When watching ‘Happiness’ we thought it was relatively flat and uninspiring as a piece of communication. And we are not the only ones, in a review, Ad Industry trade magazine Campaign raised a number of issues.

First of all, Campaign made the point that good time keeping is not a trait exclusive to Japan. People think the same thing about (e.g.) Germany or Scandinavia. Secondly Campaign pointed out that sometimes delays are unavoidable, for example in extreme weather conditions and that JAL could be setting itself up for a fall by making promises it can’t keep.

Finally, Campaign talked about timekeeping being more of a hygiene factor. It is simply something you expect, and some other differentiator (e.g. Japanese hospitality) needed to be added.

We agree and a good example of an airline that did that was SAS, which as far back as 2011 ran a campaign around punctuality. The way SAS chose to do that was to release an app called ‘Time Killer.’

This was ostensibly aimed at passengers of other airlines, for them to play while they are waiting for their delayed flights at the airport.

‘Time Killer’ worked because it was fun and creative. It made a serious point, but in a light hearted way.

KEY TAKE-AWAY

You don’t expect an airline to be late, so the JAL claim does have an element of ‘so what’ about it. And would the fact that JAL’s on time rate is a few percentage points higher than that of its nearest competitors really be enough to get frequent travellers to switch?

Reliability is of course an important message, but as Campaign pointed out, there needs to be something else as well. The SAS example is a good one. The fact that they made an app for passengers of other airlines says both ‘we’re on time’ but also ‘we are fun and human.’