The Trip you promised China Airlines

THE TRIP YOU PROMISED CHINA AIRLINES

A new China Airlines ad campaign, revolves around the theme of broken promises and holidays that never happen.

Produced by Leo Burnett, the ad was according to China Airlines viewed three million times, 24 hours after its release

In it, a series of different people get guilty consciences when every day events remind them of empty holiday promises that they made in the past.

For example, an office worker reads a menu in a cafe and is reminded of the afternoon tea in London she promised her friends, while a police detective looks at crime statistics in a powerpoint chart where the circles look like mouse ears. After that his son pops up to remind him about a missed Disneyland trip.

Meanwhile a boss sits on the WC reading an article about the Northern lights, whereupon his co-workers crowd around

him reminding him about the time he promised to take them to the Canadian Arctic. China Airlines explains the thinking behind the campaign: “Each year, we have different excuses. However, how many ‘next times’ do we have? Let’s make it ‘this time’.” To give passengers that extra push to keep their vacation promises, China Airlines ran a sale coinciding with the ad launch, with special fares from Taipei to London, Brisbane and other destinations. It’s a funny piece of advertising, and we could see potential for campaign extensions, for example via a social media and PR push all around the theme of broken promises (e.g. why not have a ‘broken vacation promise amnesty’, where people can print out ‘get out of jail’ monopoly style cards, linked into some kind of flights competition).

It’s also gone down well in Asia-Pacific, both among consumers, measured in views, and the ad industry.

Writing in Best Ads on TV, Jureeporn Thaidumrong, chairwoman/CCO, Grey Bangkok, chose it as her favourite TV campaign, commenting:

“This is great insight for the Asian audience. And most have experienced this “promise” before. And as the film goes there is surprise after surprise. Great deeply twisted execution of storytelling.”

TRAVEL WITH PARENTS

The ‘Trip you promised’ is a follow-on from China Airlines 2017 campaign “Travel with Parents.”

According to Leo Burnett’s Murphy Chou, “We discovered that although people often traveled with their parents when they were kids, many couldn’t recall memories of those trips when they grew up.

“We shared our findings online. At the end of the film, we encouraged consumers to take a trip with their parents to create new shared memories.”

In 2016 Hong Kong Airlines also launched a travel with parents ad, the creative execution here featured a son taking his mother on business class.