iahphx

"No fees" is scapped for "It's on" -- a campaign designed to get people travelling again during harder economic times.

Everybody's different, but I don't think this campaign is particularly wise. It wouldn't be a BAD campaign for the industry as a whole, but why does it make me want to fly WN SPECIFICALLY?

BTW, WN is somewhat unusual in the industry these days because they spend a fair amount of money on nationwide brand "image advertising." Most airlines focus on more target marketing.

I don't think they'll get there money's worth out of this, but we'll see.

http://www.blogsouthwest.com/

Beckles

This is in a very similar vein to their Wanna Get Away campaign which if anything was even more non-WN focused than the ad they have posted for the "It's On" campaign.

kerflumexed

At the SWA blog is another video on behind the scenes stuff for these series of ads. I found that to be on and when it mentioned that much was shot at the Austin airport, I went back and re-watched the ad and sure-nuff saw a number of familiar faces of SWA AUS folks. And the pilots are real pilots - not actors.

For the curious, you can go to the GSD&M website, click on clients, click on SWA, and they have a bunch of commercials (not the brand new ones btw) including (yuck) Nick Pudder. There is one where the bumper sticker on the back of the taxi proclaims no change fees. So maybe that is the one fee you will not see at SWA - for a while.

[About 10 years ago SWA was going to scrap GSD&M (located here in Austin). GSD&M loaded up all their employees onto buses, traveled to Dallas and made a pitch in the lobby of the SWA HQ building. It worked.]

MikeMpls

That is needed. Too many people don't realize WN is a MAJOR U.S. airline with fee (non) structure that will work to many customers' advantage. I didn't realize that myself I we started flying NW to MDW a couple years ago and got to read all the WN posters as we walked out of the airport.

And where are we now?

Later: Have to admit this particular ad is a bit underwhelming.

FCfree

Its ok, not a WOW. Give it a B on the A-B-C-D-F scale.

The thing that really is impressive about Southwest TV advertising is how much of it there is. They are on every night on the NBC local news in Denver. And, not only do their ads tell you that they are a great airline, but they also feature at least one price example. Recently, that has been DEN-MSP for $89 one way. When I have been in other cities, they are obviously advertising different city pairs at different prices. I don't see Frontier or United advertising even 1/10th as much as Southwest. When they do advertise, they don't say anything about price. United's is just this touchy-feely thing about its nice to get back home. Frontier is supposed to be a "whole different animal" but the only differences from United that I see are the animals on the tails and the DirectTV thing.

Southwest has a history of some pretty cool advertising in all media forms.

iahphx

Remember, though, it's not free. The price of all those ads are built into the ticket price. Most airlines have found non-hub mass media to be cost-ineffective. WN's business model -- and route map -- is a little different, though, so maybe the math is different.

DEN advertising is obviously ramped up these days to try to build brand recognition in a new market.

MrMan

Great new WN summer ad campaign

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VV3MHHu6Qs

FCfree

No doubt that advertising does cost money. But, isn't the goal of advertising to increase your business more than it costs you? Why else would any business ever advertise? I think the legacy carriers do not advertise their price because they are not proud of it. The legacies don't have a lot of money to advertise, but they also don't have a lot great to say about themselves. WN's advertising could actually make the cost of each ticket cheaper, if the advertising is filling up the airplanes.

A truthful ad for United would be "come on down and fly with us. We will charge you more than WN, charge you bag fees, charge you change fees and our flight attendants are not that friendly, even though we used to call ourselves the "Friendly Skies." We do go some places that WN doesn't go. A few of those you might actually be interested in (Hawaii, Europe, Mexico, Canada, Far East, SYD) Prepare to pay through the nose for those destinations unless we have serious competition. We have first class and business class, but the price is out of this world. Try to upgrade using miles if you can, but we do limit how many upgrades we give out. You want a saver award? Good luck, we don't have many of those. Consult our "standard award chart" for a more realistic estimate of how many miles we want. For others locations, they are kind of out of the way and you will actually be on a United Express RJ, not actually operated by us."

DEN is the hub of UA and F9, yet I hardly see any UA advertising and just a little bit of F9. WN is on the local news every night. F9 says they are a "whole different animal" and have some cute talking animals on their tails, but their commericals don't really tell me why they are a better choice than WN. WN's $89 to MSP ad does that for me. I think -- hmmmm $89 to MSP, I wonder what the price is to where I want to go. Just from booking enough on WN, I know that the base price for DEN-LAS is $79 plus $10.60 taxes.

I also notice that the TV ad here in DEN is different from what you are seeing on You Tube and Blog Southwest. My personal opinion is that the TV ad is better. Just repeatedly saying "Its On" is kind of like the Budwiser "Whazzz Up" commercial. However, Budwiser is a good example of why a company with a highly recognized brand name continues to advertise -- it must sell more beer than if they stopped advertising. You would think that either you are a Bud drinker or you are not. Yet, Budwiser must have some pretty solid proof that spending millions per year, including Super Bowl commericals, brings in more sales than it costs. It creates "brand awareness" and a "brand image." When you think "low cost carrier" you think Southwest -- same principle.

Even Jay Leno's repeated jokes about Southwest reinforce the "low cost carrier" image in your mind. The only bad thing about the jokes is that it creates the false impression that service is somehow poorer on WN, when it fact its better than the legacies, at least for a straight up comparison of a city pair that both WN and a legacy serve. (I will freely admit that I am looking forward to a flight on NW where I upgraded using miles to a city that WN doesn't serve)

The DEN TV ad gets my attention more than the You Tube ads. But of course, it is the quality of service, the lack of fees, the fun (singing) flight attendants and the reasonable prices that keep me coming back to Southwest.

SAPMAN

I wonder if the shift from No Fees advertising to It's On is a precurser to more Fees on WN. I said a few weeks ago that WN could cut out its No Fees advertising/slogans a month or two before it announces fees -- so the connection will not be so obvious. So expect more fees to be announced in the next 4-6 weeks (enough time for people to forget the No Fees advertising).

ftnoob

"No fees" appears in my confirmation/cancellation Emails 69 times from 16-Nov-2008 through 30-Apr-2009. It has appeared zero times in 25 confirmation/cancellation Emails from 4-May-2009 through today. 30-April would seem a good bet for the end of the "no fees" campaign.

curbcrusher

My favorite part of the "It's On" campaign is its incitement of fistfights with abstract ideas. If only the Dallas Sportatorium was still around!

Tim in Hollywood

Speaking of commercials...it's a fair bit off-topic, but the most hilarious commercial I have seen is not a Southwest commercial, but America West. It was a parody of Southwest's previous boarding procedure.

When the WN boarding announcement was made in the commercial, it cut to rampaging crowds, people pushing, shoving, and knocking others to the ground. Absolute anarchy in an attempt to get near the front of the line. Very very funny.

Prior to the new boarding procedures (where pax didn't have to line up 45+ minutes in advance for a decent seat), I avoided Southwest at all costs. Now, I have a companion pass.

Does anyone know if this commercial is available online?

curbcrusher

http://www.psa-history.org/awa/video...silly_slam.wmv

Tim in Hollywood

Thanks a bunch! ^ Still a very funny commercial...though would be slightly better without the heavy compression for the web.

curbcrusher

This morning I received an email welcoming me to southwestvacations.com where the "no fees" marketing is alive and well. From the email:



I realize that Southwest Airlines Vacations and Southwest Airlines are two separate companies, but the former is licensed by the latter.