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Tags: Advertising / British Airways / Travel Advertising / Ryanair / → All Tags

British Airways Breaks New Advertising Ground, Puts Ads On Boarding Passes

Not content with being cheaper than Ryanair and reducing check-in allowances like Ryanair, British Airways is now following Ryanair's lead and plastering every last empty space with ads:

British Airways is trying to come up with a way to increase profit by becoming the first major European scheduled airline to sell advertising space on its own boarding passes. British Airways, which has already posted a £106 million net loss for the three months ending June 30, said that it is now actively seeking advertisers who wish to buy space on its boarding cards, as well as on its website.

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Tags: Advertising / Turkish Airlines / Celeb Travel / Kevin Costner / → All Tags

Kevin Costner Shills For Turkish Airlines

Turkish Airlines wants you to feel like a flight attendant is always hovering over your shoulder on your next flight. The Star Alliance member tapped Kevin Costner for its latest commercial, which features the "Field of Dreams" actor making significant eye contact with an attendant who then serves him dinner and puts in his bookmark (not a euphemism) as a bouncy tune suggests he "feel[s] like a star." Let's just hope he didn't show her the business in gratitude.

We saw this spot over and over on CNN International last month and never once registered that it was Costner. (In fact, we didn't even remember the airline name, just the tune as heard through a haze of jet lag.)

That said, doesn't his presence actually undermine the claim that anyone flying Turkish Airlines will feel like a star, considering Costner was an A-lister at one point and is still pretty famous. Maybe they teamed up with him because of his long and happy history with turkeys from "Waterworld" to "Swing Vote." Costner has actually been to Turkey before, though, on a world tour with his country band, Kevin Costner and Modern West.

Turkish Airlines recently suffered a nasty crash outside Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport in February in which nine died as the plane broke into three places in a botched landing.

Related Stories:
· Kevin Costner Rounds Out The Wacky Crowd At Tribeca Grand [HC]
· Turkish Arlines Jet Crashes Outside Schiphol Airport [Jaunted]
· Celeb Travel coverage [Jaunted]

Tags: Know The Law / Travel Bans / Smelly Travel / Minnesota Travel / Advertising / → All Tags

Say It, Don't Spray It: Axe Body Spray Not Welcome in Minneapolis

Heading to Minneapolis anytime soon? Leave your Axe body spray at home; it's not like the flight attendants have fallen into your lap yet, anyways. You see, Minnesota isn't too happy that Axe's hyper-sexual advertising campaigns have been working so well, causing kids to drench themselves in the potent scents and offend sensitive nostrils.

Apparently the overuse of Axe is so widespread in the City of Minneapolis School District, that they've called for a ban on the stuff.

You'd think that with all this hubbub, flying into Minneapolis airspace would involve descending through a fog layer of aerosol Axe spray, but instead it's simply a case of teachers trying to encourage teenage boys to shower more often. Says StyleList: "One concern prompting suburbia to sound the alarms is the idea that Axe Body Spray is somehow enabling teens to adopt poor hygiene habits."

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Tags: Winter Travel / Advertising / Public Transportation / → All Tags

Advertisers Heating Up Chicago, We Don't Mind

Except in a few forward-thinking cities, advertising eyesores are as much a part of the urban fabric as cabs and skyscrapers. But we'd be happy to tolerate the newest marketing in Chicago, where today's high is forecast to be 34: Stove Top Stuffing will be blasting hot air into 10 bus shelters until the end of the month.

Kraft, the company that makes Stove Top, has hired the advertising agency that controls bus stops in the city to add heat-channeling metal plates to the roofs of shelters in downtown Chicago, though we're still trying to figure out exactly where all the hot spots are. (At least a couple are along Michigan Avenue and along State Street.)

The idea behind the so-called experiential ads is that you'll feel warm and fuzzy when waiting for your bus, just like you do when you're gobbling down holiday fixin's. Kraft also plans to hand out sample size cups of stuffing this month to drive home the connection. Whatever: We're just trying to warm up, thanks!

Related Stories:
· Hot Food, and Air, at Bus Stops [NYT]
· Three Is a Trend: Billboard-Free Cities [Jaunted]

[Photo: arekd]

Tags: Tasteless Travel / Pizza / Advertising / → All Tags

No Boundary This Kiwi Pizza Chain Won't Cross

New Zealand's Hell Pizza knows how to garner free press like Heidi Montag knows how to stay in the headlines. A string of self-imposed negative attention is giving the Down Under chain worldwide notoriety.

First, the company plastered billboards around New Zealand reading, "Hell. Too good for some evil bastards," next to a photo of George W. Bush. People winced. Then they offered a free Thai massage with a pizza purchase. People proclaimed sexism, racism and staged boycotts. Oh but the instigators at Hell didn't stop there. It gets much worse.

Now, the company has incited near-riots after airing commercials that feature the corpses of Heath Ledger, Britain's Queen Mum and Mount Everest conqueror Sir Edmund Hillary. The deceased dance on graves to the tune of Michael Jackson's "Thriller."

Now, we're all for shaking things up, but when something's this offensive we'll give the pizza a pass. The next time we're in Christchurch, we're ordering slices from the parlor with a reputation earned by baking tasty pies: Winnie Bagoes.

Related Stories:
· Hell Pizza [Official Site]
· Heat on Hell Pizza Over Flyer Offering Thai Massage [One News]
· New Zealand Pizza Chain Withdraws Dancing Corpses Ad [AFP, via Google]

[Photo: mangee]

Tags: Advertising / Advertising Bans / Travel Trends / → All Tags

Three Is a Trend: Billboard-Free Cities

A billboard ban--called an act against "visual pollution" by the mayor--went into effect on January 1, 2007 in São Paulo. And what the Brazilian city started could soon become a global trend.

In China, the well-touristed city of Xi'an has just announced it will remove advertising from its historic center as part of a broader plan to spruce up the imperial capital. Meanwhile in Cleveland, some government officials are trying to reign in billboards using a legal clause already on the city's books.

Other South American cities including Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro and Brasilia are looking into the idea of ending outdoor advertising, too. Could billboard prohibition be the new smoking ban?

Related Stories:
· Billboards Gotta Go in Xi'an [IT]
· Advertising Rage [Cleveland Scene]
· Clearing the Air [OTM]
· Advertising coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo of São Paulo: andredeak]

Tags: Tourism Marketing / Travel Advertising / Advertising / Travel Snapshots / AirAsia / Tony Fernandes / → All Tags

Travel Snapshot: AirAsia Upping the Billboard Ante

We thought Orlando's inadvertently raunchy billboard was the greatest travel advertising of the year, but this ad from maverick LCC entrepreneur and washing machine salesman Tony Fernandes has just surged into the lead.

It should come as little surprise that this billboard is in Queensland, Australia, a country known for edgy advertising.

Related Stories:
· Hesitant to Travel? [Seattle P-I]
· Tourism Marketing and Double Entendres [Jaunted]
· Travel Advertising coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: Beth Whitman]

Tags: Derrie-Air / Advertising / → All Tags

Adventures of Link: The Derrie-Air Dustup

A few days ago, two newspapers in Philadelphia ran some ads for "Derrie-Air," a purported new airline that would charge passengers by the pound. (The news outlets wanted to test how effective their ads were.) We didn't cover the story when it broke because we thought the idea was, well, kind of stupid.

But after the initial wave of "What if an airline did that?!" coverage, the ads are now getting a second look from media watchers. Was it ethical for the Inquirer and the Daily News to run fake ads, Editor & Publisher wonders? The general consensus on the web: Nope!

Related Stories:
· Philly Airline Ads Draw Responses, Ethics Concerns [E&P]
· Newspapers Run Ads about Fake Airline [AP, via Google]
· Derrie-Air: Philly to LA? [World Hum]
· Derrie-Air Exposed [SMH]

Tags: Tourism Marketing / Travel Advertising / Advertising / Travel Snapshots / → All Tags

Travel Snapshot: Tourism Marketing and Double Entendres

A tipster just sent us this snap, taken near McCarran International in Las Vegas. Why advertise one sunny destination in another? The Travel Industry Association's annual conference was on in Nevada, and Orlando didn't want to miss out on the fun.

Oh, and you're not the only one with the dirty mind. Liz Benston at the Las Vegas Sun is right there with you. The ad may work for Orlando, she writes, but it'd never fly in her hometown:

Take the double and potentially negative meaning of "stays with you forever" when applied to a whirlwind trip to Las Vegas, for example.

Related Stories:
· Orlando Spikes Vegas Rivalry with Humor [LVS]
· Meanwhile in Orlando [Gridskipper]
· Tourism Marketing coverage [Jaunted]

Tags: Southwest Airlines / Airlines / Airline Fees / Travel Advertising / Advertising / → All Tags

Travel Advertising: Southwest Goes Edgy

Every time Spirit releases one of its frat-tastic ads, it falls flatter than a joke about airline fees. Yet, Southwest Airlines has managed to create an edgy ad that tackles nickel-and-diming--and doesn't make us groan.

This full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal is just perfect, and it works hand-in-hand with a new URL: southwest.com/nofees. With so many airlines adding extra charges, a bit of attention-grabbing "#$*!%" is just what Southwest needs to remind jaded fliers that you won't get charged for checking a bag on the carrier. Nicely done.

Related Stories:
· Best Airline Ad Ever! [Tim Leffel]
· Southwest Airlines coverage [Jaunted]
· Travel Advertising coverage [Jaunted]

Tags: Airports / Advertising / Videos / → All Tags

New Ads Will Make Airports Even Worse

Don't find the airport annoying enough already? Just wait till you have to navigate a terminal full of these interactive floor ads.

The so-called STEPscape ads already draw crowds in malls, so we can totally imagine groups of people hovering over 'em, cluttering up already crowded concourses. But hey, if you want that free WiFi, the airport has to pay for it somehow.

There's no word on when these will show up, but lots of airports are already signed up to get them, including ATL, DEN, ORD, DFW, PHX and SFO.

Related Stories:
· Airports Installing Ads that "Come to Life" [Budget Travel]
· More STEPscape Videos [Official Site]
· Airports coverage [Jaunted]

Tags: Italy Travel / Silvio Berlusconi / Advertising / → All Tags

Italy Travel: Propoganda Taints Tourist Biz

Both Milan and Venice would love a profitable spring tourism season, but we have to wonder if having racist campaign posters plastered around the north of the country is the wisest way to drum up international appeal.

May we regretfully introduce the Lega Nord, a relatively new side show act in the already fascinating Italian political circus. Since 1991, the Lega party has been spewing bold political propaganda and outwardly racist opinions towards what they believe to be criminal immigrants, freeloading Southern Italians and gay exhibitionists.

In the north of Italy this week you may still see the Northern League's campaign manifestos lingering after Monday's national election. As expected, the winner was Silvio Berlusconi, an ally of the LN.

As for the posters themselves, the Native American cautiously warns that Italians could end up just like him, on a reservation, if they allow more immigrants to make a home in Italy. The one with the fat egg-snatching woman says, "Wake up Northern Italians! With Lega Nord, Against Roman Thieves." Something tells us these fellas didn't play well with the other kids in preschool.

Related Stories:
· Back in Office, Berlusconi Enthusiastically Seizes Reins [NYT]
· Bankrupt Airline Buzz: Is Alitalia Next? [Jaunted]
· Italy Travel coverage [Jaunted]