Tag Archives for advertising.
We’re living in an era where the brand is the product, not just the logo—and Delta understood that earlier than any U.S. airline. The point isn’t that Delta runs more ads; it’s that Delta has spent a decade building a story about who it serves and what it stands for, and that narrative makes customers pay a premium while giving employees a clearer North Star for decisions.
United is escalating its Chicago fight with American on every front—capacity, Wall Street messaging, and now a fresh set of ads that openly taunt AAdvantage. The new “AAdvantage, United” line is the kind of not-even-trying-to-be-subtle jab that only makes the rivalry louder as ORD turns into a full-blown marketing and schedule war.
Syracuse airport officials approved a paid billboard from an employment law firm — then rejected it over one line about “harmless flirting.” The firm sued, the airport rewrote its advertising rules mid-case, and a federal judge still granted an injunction, calling the “misleading” rationale “nonsense.” The fight now is over a simple question: can a government airport pick which messages travelers get to see?
United Airlines has been adding seat back video screens to planes, and they’re planning to put the fastest internet in the sky on board – Starlink – starting next year. This is great for customers, but it’s all part of a plan to monetize the eyeballs of customers sitting on their planes.
Let’s check in on how that’s going.
Qatar Airways has a new interactive ad, where you can put yourself in a promotional film using AI. You upload your photo, and get inserted into a romantic travel adventure.
Last summer United brought in a Vice President from Comcast to lead MileagePlus. It wasn’t because he had a unique understanding of loyalty marketing. The idea was to better monetize MileagePlus members by selling ads more aggressively.
The point in a celebrity campaign is to associate the brand with something. At its worst, the celebrity’s gravitas rubs off, or their likeability. It’s good enough for this person, I’m sure to like it!
But at its best – and nobody does celebrity advertising like Nike – it creates a brand purpose that makes the product a celebrity. Nike celebrates the athletes they have endorsement deals with. They celebrate greatness in sport. And though they’re selling a commodity (shoes, but in many ways airplane seats are similar) they become something consumers want an attachment to as a result.
Southwest Airlines used to carry more local passengers to and from Denver, while United had more passengers total given their big connecting hub there. Now United actually carries more Denver locals, too – a result of offering more total seats in the market (they’ve replaced a bunch of regional jets with mainline flying). There’s no reason to make disingenuous advertising claims when they actually have a killer argument to make. Yet somehow they fail to do so?
After first picking the ad agency co-founded by Magic Johnson, Walton Isaacson, for its diversity, equity and inclusion branding back in December American Airlines has selected the firm as their agency of record. Two things struck me from the news of the new agency.
United has been paying a guy to hold up a sign at its hubs, thanking passengers. But labor is tough to come by these days, and it looks like they’ve figured out how to to leverage underutilized space to get their messages across to customers:
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
