It seems like only Monday when we were saying that it might be a bad idea to force airlines—some of whom barely have a pulse, as exemplified by the American Airlines bankruptcy—to give up on all the ways they've invented to make money. No one denies that some airline fees are insanely grating, and we complain about them as much as anyone, but with the airline industry recovering from the worst decade ever, maybe this isn't the perfect time for heavy-handed government brainstorming. No one wants a repeat of the tarmac delays debacle, after all.
Naturally the Department of Transportation has chosen now to pass a series of new regulations, including a ban on ticket-change fees for changes made within 24 hours of booking. And we could be doing a post about whether those are bad ideas in theory or in practice or in both. But instead we're going to write about the reaction of Spirit Airlines to the DOT's decision. Because if theRyanair of North America has a specialty, it's in taking something mildly obnoxious and completely owning it. ]]>
Modern-day airlines are not shy about travel advertising built on the sex appeal of their flight attendants. Ryanair closed last year with a particularly blatant reminder, in the form of a lingerie calendar, that booking a ticket with the airline would get you a chance to interact with their hot employees. That wasn't particularly original, inasmuch as we've recently seen sex advertising and nude calendars involving flight attendants of Aeroflot and Mexicana and Spanish Air and Avianova. It was, however, somewhat effective at generating customer interest, since it turns out that sex sells. Who knew?
There are those people who criticize these ads, either on general sexism grounds or because the ads potentially promote the sexual harassment of flight attendants. Then there are other people who throw up their hands on the question, settling for the neutral argument that it's the job of advertisers to make effective ads and that's that. Finally there are the people who actively defend sex-tinged advertising, because what's wrong with sex? But on this we hope all sides can agree: this 1950s ad for Czech Airlines—which doesn't seem like an ad but really was—is pervy and creepy and pervy and creepy. ]]>
We're not as-a-rule opposed to seeing travel advertising mascots getting killed. Last December, when Air New Zealand murdered off their spokespuppet Rico, we even declared ourselves to be fairly pleased. The borderline rapey rat-like character had become insanely grating even (especially?) for a felt puppet. So when the airline announced a viral Whodunit game where players tried to figure out Rico's murderer, we figured that was as good an excuse as any to be rid of him.
But today we weep. For today, Priceline kills off the Priceline Negotiator. The travel industry icon, played by William Shatner, has been the face of the travel bidding and booking company for 14 years. To give you an idea of how big a business and culture story this is, it's being run everywhere from the Wall Street Journal to Perez Hilton. They sound sad too. Not as sad as we are, of course, but it's there if you read between the lines. For his part Shatner describes himself as being "in grief mode."]]>
Air New Zealand's new viral media campaign asks fans and followers to solve the murder of Rico, their obnoxious creepster of a puppet, by playing an online game.
The rat-like character, you'll remember, had been slowly making the transition merely sleazy to borderline rapey over a series of videos. Apparently the airline's creatives ran out of ideas, so they killed him.
The game is a Clue knockoff in which players are asked to determine which celebrity killed Rico where with what etc etc. The story is that Rico was killed at a Hollywood house-warming party, and so many of his former interviewees apparently make appearances. There's also some kind of prize which includes economy airfare to LA, a hotel stay, Universal Studios and Disney vouchers, and some other stuff. We're unsure whether "not playing the game at all" because "you really don't care" makes you eligible, but the rules and conditions spell everything out.]]>
There's an old Simpsons line about USA Today, where Homer tells Lisa that the newspaper isn't afraid to tell America the truth, which is that "everything is just fine." So when the country's second-largest newspaper notices that travel advertising on airlines has gotten kind of obnoxious, there's a decent chance that things have actually reached crisis proportions.
And in fairness, so-called "ambient advertising" has definitely gotten out of hand on American airlines. Led by Spirit Airlines—of course, because who else—there are logos and patches even on the uniforms of flight attendants.
We're long past the days when it was controversial to put ads on the backs of magazines or even on tray tables, and we've all seen pitches for cars and restaurants included on print-at-home boarding passes. So the actual "yes advertising is everywhere now" part of the article is definitely true. We were just surprised to learn that anybody cared.]]>
We occasionally run into these situations, where a commercial for some product reminds us that beautiful people in Italy are having a lot more fun than we are. Last time it was this insanely fun commercial by Italian vermouth company Martini, which was filmed in Croatia but still retained its Italian ethos. This time it's a commercial by Italian winemaker Tasca d'Almerita, which looks like something that could have been produced by an Italian tourism board. Except it's better.
The video is titled "A Glass of Sicily, and Adweek tells us that there's an Itanian "viral media company" behind the 80-second production. That explains, at the very least, how a commercial for a wine maker ended up with an interactive map on Flickr, though not why it was filled with photos and videos that are functionally travel advertisements for Sicily. Again, if they didn't get at least some money from an Italian tourism board they got ripped off. It's a gorgeous commercial.]]>
Listen. We're not exactly prudes when it comes to the significant overlap between the world of travel and the world of boobs. In the course of a few months last year we covered very extreme flight attendant nakedness on three different continents, spanning calendars and ads from Australia to Russia to Spain.
We—proudly, with absolutely no shame—had a Naughtiest Flight Attendants 2010 Jaunty. We maintain different sections so we can differentiate between Nude Travel and Naked Travel and Sex Travel, because, hey, those are all different things and we know you demand precision on these issues.
So we can't really get offended by latest Ryanair ad, which pushes cheap tickets to the Bavarian beer festival. The picture is fine—it's just a fraulein showing a hint of cleavage—but the cheap attempt at controversy comes from putting her picture under "See The Frauleins With The Big Jugs." Our problem is that the ad just kind of sucks.]]>