Lunar Adventures: exploring a little bit of everything

Blog post [Displaying post and comments]

Friends of LunarAdventures:

Southwest Airlines “bags fly free” commercials hit home

Southwest Airlines has long had smart marketing.  Their latest set of commercials on bags flying free, “We Love Your Bags”, is another great example of a smart company employing a smart strategy.

Focusing on strengths and differentiation is nothing new to marketing, but those basic tenets seem to get lost in favor of cleverness and “wow” factors.

Southwest’s latest campaign really resonates, though.

Bags are important to flyers.  How often do you hear horror stories about airlines losing bags?  I know my Facebook news stream is littered with stories this holiday season of airlines losing their bags.

Southwest recognizes bags’ importance to customers, and plays off of that.

“Bags fly free” isn’t just about saving the customer money. Where other airlines are saying, “your bags are 1) an inconvenience and 2) an opportunity for us to make a few more dollars”, Southwest uses bags as an opportunity.

Their latest commercial paints a picture of burly men handling bags personally, and getting teary-eyed when they get on the plane and fly away.

“Bags are my life,” one handler says.

“I love bags,” another says, waving goodbye to his traveling friends.

That message, combined with the lack of fees, is Southwest saying to its customer that bags are important to you, so they’re important to the airline.   The implication is they won’t lose your bags, because they care — and the humans behind the actual baggage handling care.

It’s a starkly different picture than that of the “stereotypical baggage handler” — an angry man that’s doing his best to test the structural integrity of your baggage.

And it’s a refreshing change.  Travelers are tired of the “same old” from airlines, which includes late flights, nickel and dime charges at every opportunity, and lost luggage.

Southwest’s message, which revolves around something as simple as the lack of a fee around the first piece of luggage, effectively points out that they are an airline intent on bucking the trends set by their industry. And of winning the customer satisfaction battle.

Tue January 5th, 2010 9:46 pm

Filed under Advertising & Marketing, Media, Televsion

5 comments

  1. Jabroni said:
    January 10th, 2010 7:24 pm

    Too bad the commercials are overly done as it shows these so called bag handlers exhibit rather weird behavior. On one instance, one goes as far as to get teary eyed as she sees the plane leave. In the same commercial they rewind and play the segment over and over and it becomes rather annoying listening to it again and again. It also adds to the annoying factor when they play the same commercial 5 times an hour. If anything this would deter customers away, because some may be turned off with this rather irritating method of marketing. So while the idea may have been good, they probably should find a better way of expressing themselves(Southwest Airlines).

  2. Brandon said:
    January 10th, 2010 7:42 pm

    I can’t get over how many people miss the HUMOR of these ads. People actually get caught up in thinking that the employees in the commercials are “acting naturally”. Do people honestly think that baggage handlers anywhere actually tear up when the bags leave the terminal?!?

    It’s a brilliant marketing campaign and the commercials are brilliantly shot, edited and scored – the music is great for the effect of the different spots. People who think the ads are “weird” are missing the point.

  3. Carole George said:
    January 16th, 2010 6:59 pm

    I love this commercial! I wondered if any of the Southwest employees were used. If not, they did a great job, but would be so cool if they did use their employees.

  4. Daniel said:
    January 16th, 2010 8:45 pm

    That commercial is hilarious. Just pitch perfect. I suspect people that dislike it because the baggage handlers are weird need to have jokes explained to them on a regular basis.

    Something is happening but you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr Jones?

  5. Pat Maddox said:
    January 17th, 2010 3:51 pm

    Is that Adam Corelli in the commerical, for Bags fly free? My son and I have an agrument going, I say yes, he says no. Anybody know?

Leave a comment