10/18/10
Mr. Bourgase
NAME:
Competitive Advantages (Services)
Worksheet 17
JetBlue Pokes Fun at the Competition
October 13, 2010  Stuart Elliott 
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/14/business/media/14adco.html
Among the signs that marketers are feeling somewhat better about the economy is
an increase in advertising by airlines, an industry that is particularly vulnerable to the
ebbs and flows of consumer spending.
JetBlue Airways has a new agency, too, having decided in May to replace JWT in
New York, the WPP unit that had created ads for JetBlue since late 2005, with Mullen
in Boston, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies. Like the Delta campaign, the
new JetBlue campaign, which is to get under way on Friday, includes a word in the
theme that evokes being aloft.
“You above all,” JetBlue promises in its ads, which will appear in print, online and in
mobile, outdoor and social media. Instead of television commercials, there will be
offbeat video clips, to run on Hulu, Vevo and YouTube and Web sites that are part of
the BBE Network.
The videos will take sharp pokes at how other airlines treat their customers. In some,
actors playing taxi cab drivers try to charge passengers $25 for each bag placed in
their trunks, in a reminder that the first checked bag on JetBlue is still free.
In another video, an actor playing a pushcart vendor gives customers only half a
can of soda, in a reminder that JetBlue offers passengers full cans, and other snacks,
free. And in another video, an actor playing an elevator operator presses all the
buttons in the car so it stops at every floor, in a reminder that JetBlue flights are
nonstop.
To underline the message, visitors to the YouTube.com home page on Friday will see
these words interrupting a clip onscreen: “Please pay $5 to continue watching all
video content. $5, one-day pass.”
Five dollars? Isn’t YouTube free? These words will then appear onscreen: “You expect
free entertainment here. Why not in the air?” JetBlue, the ad continues, gives fliers
“your choice of 46 free DirecTV channels in every seat.” The visitors are then invited
to watch the JetBlue clips to “see what happens when the ground rules change.”
The videos all end with this assertive slogan: “If you wouldn’t take it on the ground,
don’t take it in the air.”
The goal is for the campaign to set up JetBlue, which is marking its 10th anniversary,
“for the next 10 years,” said Martin St. George, senior vice president for marketing
and commercial strategy at JetBlue in Forest Hills, Queens.
Attack Ads
Worksheet 17
“ ‘You above all’ gets us back to our DNA, our original mission, bringing humanity
back to air travel,” Mr. St. George said, whereas recent campaigns, which carried
themes like “More” and “Happy jetting,” “didn’t quite have a human side.”
“We’re not afraid to call it out where the JetBlue experience is better than the
experience at our competitors,” he added. “We have customers who fly us for
leisure travel all the time,” Mr. St. George said, but for their four to 10 business trips a
year they fly the older, so-called legacy airlines because they believe “they have a
chance for an upgrade — but they never get it.”
“We want to remind them they have a great option under their noses,” he added.
“We’re not trying to become an airline with a first-class cabin and look like Singapore
or British Airways, but the idea is that if you never pull your credit card out on JetBlue
you can still have a great experience.”
JetBlue will spend an estimated $3 million on the campaign through the end of the
year, then evaluate its performance. The airline spent $4.6 million to advertise in
major media in the first half of 2010, according to the Kantar Media unit of WPP,
compared with $11.8 million in the period a year ago.
The campaign is intended to provide “emotional differentiation” for JetBlue, said
Alex Leikikh, managing partner and director for account service at Mullen, which
was also awarded the media part of the JetBlue account, previously handled by the
MediaCom unit of WPP.
“Airline advertising today is chock full of smiley, happy business people,” Mr. Leikikh
said. “We wanted to do something different.”
That extends to the graphic design of many of the ads, which use colorful figures
that resemble the letter “i” to represent passengers. Inside the agency, “we call
them i-people,” said Mark Wenneker, managing partner and executive creative
director at Mullen, and they are transparent to symbolize how JetBlue is “a
transparent and human brand.”
The “Happy jetting” campaign was known for playfully winking at the conventions of
airline advertising. Although the new campaign is more straightforward, there is one
ad with a postmodern approach; it describes “You above all” this way: “Not a tag
line. A promise.”
There have been many airline campaigns that use words like “above” and
“climbing” to suggest the experience of flight, Others include “Up, up and away” for
Trans World Airlines, “Rising” for United and “Up” for the Oneworld alliance of carriers.
Attack Ads
Worksheet 17
Create an Attack Ad
1) Pick a company to represent and brainstorm as to how to attack its
competitors.
a. Your company:
b. Key Competitors:
c. Your Competitive Advantages:
d. Their Competitive Advantages
e. What will you choose to attack?
f.
Why will this prove to be effective?
g. How will you present the attack ad?
2) What are the pros and cons of using attack ads to highlight different
competitive advantages between a company and its competitors?