Airline Advertising Strategies; Or Lack Thereof

I boarded a train at Track 109 this morning and I was really happy when I read “With only 48 guests on a plane built for 220...”, the new ad campaign from Eos Airlines. I say "new" as though it implies that they had an old one, but that's not that case.

In fact, that's not the case for most non-dinosaur airlines. Getting on a bus or train or when walking past telephone booths, you'll see ads for JetBlue, Continental, American and maybe Delta. Even international carriers like Emirates and Lufthansa have joined the mix. But where is the non-legacy representation?

I'm shocked that, especially in a struggling industry, that airlines are not reaching out to people more to attract them. ATA had to scale back and revert to more charter flights because of poor yields. Could it be any coincidence that when I tell the average person that ATA is my favorite airline, that their response is I never heard of them"?

The general public needs to find out about airlines in ways other than if they happen to come up as the cheapest fares on Orbitz. Maybe United and US Airways are doing half decent and don’t need the same brand recognition as say ATA, but it’s business and you’re dealing with consumers all over the map. Isn’t it only logical to advertise more?

A business plan like Eos is a risky one. I, along with many others, thought it was interesting, but never gave it any votes of confidence in them succeeding. But now, seeing that maybe these people are applying their brains to their operation instead of relying on federal grants to keep them alive if they fail, I think these guys have a decent chance of pulling through.

Phil

Each airline advertises in a different way, United has a commercial that I see on the Fox channel every morning (commercial sucks)

I have seen ads for American. On the West Coast, Alaska Air has biilboards.

Now saying all of that, there is a huge opening for an Ad agency that can organize an effecting ad campaign for an airline, & yes, I do agree with you that the airlines years ago loss their connection with the general public.

Blame goes all around the management to the employees, they took the love of travelling on a big jet away....

Phil you sort of answered your own question. The industry is struggling and one of the biggest expenses by the airlines is advertising. Each year they spend millions on ads, its one of those areas that get cut when times are tuff. You can argue saying if nobody knows what your doing then how do you generate business but advertising is just one of those areas that get cut back on when times are tuff.

Another area where ads have shifted to is the web. More and more you see airline ads on websites. That cost money as well so the money that would have been spent on a TV may very well go web ads, hence cutting down the amount of print, TV, and radio ads you once heard so frequently.