Saturday, January 17, 2009

Airline Marketing: the Good, the Bad, and the Hilarious

Wow, you can get lost on YouTube. The airline marketing fail post's United ad led me to the museum of outdated airline TV ads.

I couldn't find the British Air Out of my way - I'm a British Air stewardess! ones, which is a real shame. This one is pretty good, though.



This one is a hoot. I guess kudos to them for the "Golly, some business flyers are businesswomen" moment. It felt like looking at a museum exhibit, though - you just know that someone was really, really excited at how cutting-edge it was, but time waits for no businesswoman.



Mercifully short (no pun intended), this can almost make you understand how Gloria Steinem ticks. Almost.



As for this, it's the 1960s equivalent of today's advertisers using the word "shizzle." Watch it at your own risk.



And this is #2 Son's favorite. Nancy is a bit of a ditz, but gosh, she's nice!



One of the most interesting collaborations that Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle produced was Inferno, a modern day recreation ofDante's Inferno. Populated with modern-day villans, Hell contains a special place for advertising executives. Specifically, the ones that created the "Fly Me" campaign.

4 comments:

alan said...

I loved Inferno. They're supposedly working on Inferno II. I can't wait.

Borepatch said...

Inferno is the (ahem) shizzle. ;-)

Inferno II would be top of the must-read list.

TheUnpaidBill said...

What's really scary is I actually remember some of these.

Corey-Jan Albert said...

Aw... I love Nancy. Although, being a WOMAN traveler, I see things... a little differently. Like, for instance, I'm not thinking about how much more I'd like her if she was wearing those Southwest Airlines hotpants.

Agreed, however, that the United Airlines ad works. Between this and those very cool animated ads they were running a few years ago, their ad agency is doing a great job.