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Up Close with the Annoying, Magic Ad Mirrors of Chicago-O'Hare Airport

We said they were coming, and lo, they have come. Yesterday, flying from Chicago-O'Hare, we encountered the dreaded advertising mirrors—bathroom mirrors that double up as screens for advertisements.

How are they in real life? Way more imposing/annoying than you'd expect. They work by sensing when someone's at the mirror, so if you're waiting in line for a cubicle, all you see is moving adverts. Which, we suppose, isn't too irritating, but it does mean you can't check yourself out carry out quick makeup touch ups as you wait.

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Travel Advertising / Sex Travel / Flight Attendants / Czech Airlines / Travel Ads / → All Tags

New Standard Set for Creepy 'Sexy Flight Attendants' Airline Advertising

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.

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North Dakota Pulls Ad Over Sexism Complaints

North Dakota is the least visited state in the country. Alaska, which is a frozen tundra roughly as far as Europe from the East Coast, gets more tourists than North Dakota. So it's not surprising that you don't see much on Jaunted about the Peace Garden State (actual nickname). The most prominent post we have about North Dakota appears to be this 2008 thing on ancient and dried out dinosaur bones. Very metaphorical.

Trying to fix the dearth of tourism is proving to be something of a problem for the Flickertail State (also actual nickname). North Dakota doesn't really have any tourist attractions, so the state's tourism board had to brainstorm something creative. Naturally, they turned to sex. Because when advertisers have something to sell and no real reason people should buy, they turn to sex.

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Video Interlude: The British Airways Ad That Put a Tear in Our Eye

We have a confession. Yesterday, somewhere over the northeast, we almost cried on an airplane. No, it wasn't due to some sappy movie on the seatback TV, nor was it because we didn't have time for a second Goose Island beer back at O'Hare Airport. Nope—we shed a single tear over a commercial from British Airways.

At the end of September, the Brit airline launched their newest campaign "To Fly. To Serve." Hearkening back to the glory days of aviation, BA peppers each spot with flashbacks to prop planes and the Concorde, plus their dashing pilots in full, crisp uniform. They're beautiful ads, but none more cinematic and engrossing than the one above.

Another version of the ad is here, but this one has the moneyshots of each plane taking off—from the early days when pilots were glorified mail carriers to the modern era, when lifting a 747 off the ground is just part of a regular day's work.

Enjoy. Keep a hanky handy.

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Coming Soon to Air Traffic Control Towers: Gigantic Ads?

Huge billboards plastered with advertisements and buses slapped with sales-y stickers are the norm when you’re headed to the airport. However, there’s a new spot that ads are showing up, and before long every airport might just have one.

Out in Medford, Oregon the city council just approved 25-by-25 foot signs that will soon be added to all sides of the airport’s air traffic control tower. The tower is around 100-feet tall, so this is going to be quite a billboard for those heading to and from the airport.

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Kevin Spacey (and His Multiple Personalities) Star in American Airline Ads

Get ready for another airline ad to hit your television screen, as American Airlines is ready to interrupt your weeknights on the couch with new spots featuring Kevin Spacey. That's the good news. The bad news is that technically they’re only going to be run in the United Kingdom—because we all know actors hate selling stuff in their own backyard when they can do it overseas instead. Sure he’s an Academy Award winner, but can he put butts in AA's First and Business Class seats?

In total there’s a few new ads kicking around showing off how American Airlines caters to the individual in all of us. If you take the time to check out the one we stuck up at the top, you’ll see Spacey doing his thing as several different types of people—from dad to designer—all getting ready to head off to the airport. As the ad winds down Kevin Spacey tells us he loves American Airlines, while saying hello to himself as his other personalities seated in first class.

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USA Today is Pretty Bummed Out Over In-Plane Advertising

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.

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Mexico Travel / Tourism / Tourists / Travel Ads / Tourism Boards / → All Tags

Mexico's Tourism Brainstorm: One Part 'Cash-Cab,' One Part Reality Show

If you don’t have a standing date with Brian Williams each evening then you might have missed that there’s some bad stuff going down south of the border. In a nutshell, there are some pockets of pretty violent drug-related crimes, and this alone is keeping away would-be tourists from checking out typical hot spots like Acapulco, Cancun, and beyond. Mexico is trying to clean up its image—at least with the tourists—and they’re doing so by throwing a lot of pesos at the problem.

In total the tourism board is looking to shell out around $30 million to create commercials and other advertisements to encourage plenty of travel—especially from Americans—to the fun in the sun that’s only a quick flight away. Some of the commercials are still a couple weeks away, but we do have an idea of what they’ll be all about. Of course they aren’t just going to show stunning beaches and crystal clear water, and that’s because it’s way better to create a mini reality show!

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British Airways Has Only Two Things on Their Mind: 'To Fly. To Serve.'

Usually we’re all about pricing when it comes to selecting our trip across the pond, and we highly doubt we’re the only ones. However, the marketing folks over at British Airways have come up with a commercial that’s making us feel a little differently. In fact, we’d venture to say that it's giving us the warm and fuzzies.

In case you’ve missed the commercial, we’ve included it above. It basically tells the story of the airline and their pilots from the very first flights to today’s 747s. One of the overarching messages is that British Airways pilots are awesome no matter what the situation, and they’re always ready to rise above. Where do we sign up to get our wings?

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A History of Air New Zealand's Crazy Celebrity Videos, Now Including the 'Playboy' Twins

They call it "Cuddle Class," but we affectionately think of it as "Economy Kama Sutra." That's right, we're talking about the infamous Air New Zealand Skycouch.

It's an unconventional seating idea—selling three economy seats with extra room as a kind of convertible bed for two passengers—and AirNZ has been going about marketing it in unconventional ways. But then, when have they ever been conventional? They have a pitch-black plane and body-painted crew for goshsakes!

Lately, however, Air New Zealand has taken the celebrity route to pitch the seats, involving such unlikely names as Richard Simmons, David Hasselhoff, Snoop Dogg and now...the scandalous Playboy twin ex-girlfriends of Hugh Hefner. Watch above as they flirt with AirNZ's latest mascots.

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Sicily Wine Commercial Does Its Job of Making Us Long for Italy

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.

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Travel Ads / Gogo / In-flight WiFi / WiFi / Travel Tech / Comedy Travel / → All Tags

Gogo Totally Kills It With Their First TV Ads for In-Flight WiFi

Oh my god. Oh my god. Our little addiction to in-flight WiFi is reaching new heights as Gogo launches national advertising spots.

In short, they're brilliant. We're all about Trav Lehrman and his Zach Galifianakis-in-The Hangover attitude, plus that velour sportcoat/turtleneck combo sure is something. We're also completely blown away by the sheer simple excellence of Gogo's new slogan, "Land on top of things." We're borrowing it as our new mantra. Of course we can't forget to point out that "It's the internet, in the sky" is just as slick. We'd carry a totebag printed with that, for sure.

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