mke9499

Frontier is getting a lot of mileage out of this ad campaign. There's mention and video on ABC News blog, and now some of the "candidates" have their own twitter accounts!

It's all very clever, but does this actually result in selling tickets? Is it the old adage to get your name out there to increase brand recognition?

MostlyAir, for those of us not in the Denver television market, can the commercial be uploaded to the airline website?

runnigel

Same for me. I voted Tuesday and got the email yesterday.

knope2001

IMHO it's beneficial but mostly in intangible ways.

Just about nobody is going to seek out Frontier specifically because of the critters. However:

(1) Frontier is not a nationally-known brand like, say, Coke is. So there's benefit to publicity in that regard...fewer people will say WHO? when offered this airline as an option.

(2) Keeping the Frontier name out there is important so it remains in the minds of customers. Some people tend to shop airline sites, and if they think of Frontier they may check them out. Plus if there's too little PR, at a certain point people forget you exist or mistakenly think you're out of business or merged away. Visibility is always a challenge for smaller names.

(3) Although there's some truth to the notion that there's no such thing as bad publicity, the animals are mostly perceived as positive. Think of the type of widespread publicity Spirit gets -- it's nearly always for things like previously-unheard-of fees or blocking the recline feature of seats. Differentiating things which are viewed as positive help to increase customers' overall good feelings about the airline. The spokesanimals help do that. The cookies help do that. Even the live TV helps, because while some people may make the deliberate decision to find a Frontier Airbus flight for the TV, many more people for whom TV is not make-or-break still have a better overall impression of Frontier if they remember TV is available.

Many purchase decisions are driven by a key tangible factor....US is $80 cheaper so I'll chose them. Or I am elite AA flyer so I'll seek out AA. But plenty of other purchase decisions are driven by more intangible factors.

Let's say I'm going from AAA to BBB and Delta, Airline X, Spirit and Frontier all have nonstops at 7:00am on Airbus equipment. I don't have any particular affinity to any of these airlines, and I'm not aware of any serious fee or policy differences. Spirit's out because I've heard bad things about them. Airline X is out because I have no idea who that is. If I have no impression of Frontier (or a bad one) I might well choose Delta just because they are the well-known safe choice. But if I have any positive feelings about Frontier, it might just tip the balance their way.

Obviously real purchase decisions are a lot more complicated than the four identical options in that illustration. But anything which creates a more positive impression of the airline makes a difference. On discussion boards like this we tend to focus a lot on specific differences like someone charging $20 instead of $25 for the first bag, or a 31" versus 32" seat pitch. Many customers are not as keenly aware of the type of specifics we debate here, but they do know if they felt crammed in the last time they flew X, or they may think airline Y is old and crappy because they perceive the airline color scheme as ugly, or that the ticket counter lines were infinite when they last flew airline Y. Anything you can do to make a customer think (in a good way) "Hey, this is different" can make a meaningful difference.

It's virtually impossible to know how much this translates into increased business and revenue. And intangibles like this can be trumped by other bad things...if your planes are all filthy the customers will remember filthy planes and not clever animals. But I think there's value in stuff like this even if it's not directly quantifiable how much that value is.

DenverF9Flier

Yup, just got it now - thank you!

Stumblefoot

Got mine too this afternoon. Wish it had a longer expiration date than 7-days though.

Stumblefoot

Don't dispute what you said Knope. But, in my case, those critters WERE the primary introduction to the brand that has resulted in a very long and loyal relationship over the years. But, I agree with you and I imagine I'm the exception. Here's my story.

Several years ago, I was a 1K flyer on United and had been for a few years. As my daughter became of school age, we planned a trip to Walt Disney World. One of her questions was could we ride on the plane with the animals? Imagine that! She couldn't care less that I could fly us first class for free to Orlando. She wanted the airline with the cool animals. And, since this trip was all about her, you bet we flew Frontier.

At that time, I had grown rather tired of United's maintenance and flight crew's surly antics and what seemed to be the constant slow down in work flows. The experience we had on Frontier was a genuine pleasure. So much so, that I began to fly them on other occasions to see if it was just an Orlando anomaly. To my surprise, it wasn't. So, after several years of United flying, I became a Frontier convert.

The moral of the story? Don't discount what those silly animals may mean to brand equity.

MostlyAir

The television commercials are being taken from the audition tapes. You can see those at the website below either by clicking on the screening room or the watch auditions button on the film strip.

http://www.frontierairlines.com/animals

mke9499

Thanks for the reply...have already seen the "auditions." Just thought that the commercial was something different.

But, for those who have not seen the auditions, they can just follow your link and then cast their votes.

DenverBrian

Me too. Now, then: Where the heck do you place the promo code in the reservation?

RSVP

Flight Finder in the Quick Links menu, located under Plan and Book. There is a line at the bottom for the promo code.

They have done a good job hiding it.

DenverBrian

They sure did, at least from the home page. I did realized that the "book now" button within the promo code e-mail will take you there too.

So, I got 10% off...of a price that went up about 10% in the 24 hours it took to get the code.

I want to like Frontier. I really do. They make it hard to do so.

mke9499

The promo code box can also be located from the homepage, if you click on "Where would you like to fly?"

Right below Find My Flight, which is over to the right side of the page, you can click on "Promo code?"

This is another very direct way of finding the place to enter your code.

MikeFromMKE

I think this hits the nail on the head. The animals are such a staple for the airline and the flights to Disney (especially all the new MCO flying) are great because that is something the kids remember. I barely remember any of the flying I did as a kid, but I do remember getting chocolate chip cookies on the YX flight and those small things stick with you. It might draw a lot of traffic (families only taking one vacation a year), but if the parent flies a lot the kid might get used to asking what animal they flew on when they went. Like Knope said its very hard to gauge the ROI on them, but its so much better than random airline X. When F9 can match most fares (or in a lot of cases be the fare leader) and all things being equal, its the small things that influence the decision.

DenverBrian

Big plus: the new commercials are classic Frontier, with the animals talking from the tails and Jack and Griz in their rightful place as the comedic duo.

Big minus: Where's the signature funky music theme? What's with the chintzy cartoon music at the end?

mke9499

The contest narrows the contenders down to three finalists.

http://media.frontierairlines.com/ar...rticle_id=5346

A promo code for future travel will be forwarded to each voter.