Imagine this: JetBlue, the US-based airline wants to convey the message that airline rules and practices suck. And that the JetBlue experience is different. The ‘rules’ include extra charges for carry-on baggage and the ‘practices’ include hopping flights and cramped seats. What would an advertising agency have done until now? Produce a 30-second commercial knocking the competitors or exaggerating the benefits of JetBlue.
In a new campaign ‘You Above All’, JetBlue’s recently appointed agency, Mullen has produced a series of spots that aren’t exactly advertising spots. Yet they are. The idea is brilliant: ‘if you don’t take some rules on the ground, why take it in the air?‘ The execution is where it scores: people in real life are expected to put up with silly rules (a cabbie who $25 for luggage in the trunk, a hotel lift man who gets the lift to stop at all the floors, a cabbie who takes up way too much leg room etc.). Here are a couple of videos:
More videos here.
Loved the work. Surprised that the actors, especially the South Asian cabbie and the liftman in the hotel didn’t get bashed up. I guess this is where advertising is moving in the West: an ‘un-advertising’ like message that does not have ‘promotional message’ written all over it.
8 Comments
Very novel idea indeed.. Just loved the ads !!!
[On my blog] Jet Blue: Advertising is not the new advertising http://www.lbhat.com/advertising/jet-blu...
RT @bhatnaturally: [On my blog] Jet Blue: Advertising is not the new advertising http://www.lbhat.com/advertising/jet-blu...
Oh I remember seeing these and thinking oh wow. And then I saw the print. Nice lines, but art… urmmmmm.
Haha! The elevator one was great, I thought that guy was going to blow a gasket! Great campaign.
It is great to see the transition that is happening in advertising. It is hard to keep up with it, so thanks for getting me closer.
No one wants to see messages that sell directly these days. There are already too many of those. Advertising has created stories in the past that are watchable and not just selling something.
Great insight taken to a level where flyers are sensitized
creatively… Thank you Mr Bhat for sharing it.