British Airways Failure

British Airways as a brand seems to have had one major drama after another as it has stepped into the millenium. In 1997, BA suffered severly by introducing 'ethnic liveries' displaying worldly images on aircraft tailfins. Promoting it's global links and routes seemed a great idea at the time, however they literally lowered the Union Jack and came across as unpatriotic - especially when announcing cost-saving redundancies shortly afterwards.

Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher showed her displeasure at the designs by covering one of the new tailfins on a model 747 with a handkerchief at a launch event. This was a major blow for BA popularity which Virgin Atlantic took advantage of. On the back of this BA controversy, Branson applied the flag to the front end and later the wings of its aircraft, leading up to their relaunch in 1999.

BA brought back the Union Jack tailfin (BBC News Article) along with a rebrand including a modern swoosh logo, tweaked typeface and a new color palette including silver, rebranded by FutureBrand. who were made responsible for setting the new standards of excellence. Having returned the airline to it's 'Britishness' in 2001, negative PR haunted BA including further cabin crew strikes along with the recent merger with Iberia in 2010. One failure after another, until now ...

(find out in the next blog)

Do you Virgin!?

"Heck yes I Virgin!" And where-ever possible when it comes to transport, and can say: I am a fan. Still I don't drink virgin coke & wasn't too impressed with TV & broadband customer service, but that beardy Branson (who has appeared in some of the ad's) and his Virgin transport marketing boffins have got it right. I hate to give in to advertising but glad I did when it comes to air travel. Rather than flying Kuwait Airways, the last two times I flew Virgin Atlantic, the 'inflight everythings' had an element of funky-see-through-blue-plastic-edgey-ness.

When I used to visit Birmingham every 2weeks with Virgin Trains, the carridges did smell, they were far too busy and I almost always had to give up my seat to someone else and stand for the entire journey and there was an absence of windows to stick your head out of BUT none of that matters - their advertising and marketing campaigns are just spot on! My trips up to Brum were similar to their 'Booty Train: Where do you want to be?' advert, where for about a year after graduating I made the trek up to see my long term loved one. Their Native American ad, directed at business types is quite amusing however their launch advert was seen on platforms, billboards, online and TV. The Return of the Train campaign re-launched train travel and set the standard for other rail providers.

With all this recent commotion with British Airways, Virgin have now proved to be the flag flyer for Britain. Their 25th celebration is a perfect piece of creative, followed up with faultless production and direction. 'Still Red Hot' was launched and was aimed at such a wide target audience. There were complaints about how the ad was insulting to women, which you are bound to get, but was dismissed by The Advertising Watchdog. It was created by London based creative ad agency RKCR, whose website is certainly worth visiting. There is now so much brand awareness and customer loyalty/retention through their quality of service and for what you get for your money as the CVP. (Customer Value Proposition).

I watch the Red Hot ad and BOOM! It is such a well executed ad: from the props, the costumes, the soundtrack, the lighting, the hidden messages and for the positive image it gives the brand - it really is advertising that works!