New oneworld advertising campaign focuses on creature comforts

5 de septiembre de 2001

Polar bears, puppies, penguins and a whole range of other cuddly-looking creatures have been recruited to spread the word about oneworld™, the most international of the global airline alliances, in a new multi-million dollar worldwide advertising campaign launched today.

It moves the alliance's award-winning initial promotional proposition onto a new plane - and takes advertising in this sector of the airline industry onto a new flight path. It is aimed at increasing awareness of:


  • the customer benefits oneworld offers.
  • oneworld's membership, which has doubled in the two years since the alliance was launched, with Aer Lingus, Finnair, Iberia and LanChile joining founders American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific Airways and Qantas.
  • the oneworld brand name and identity, which, research indicates has, in just two years, established itself as one of the most widely recognised global airline brands in all its key geographical markets.

Between them, oneworld's airlines generate more than US$50 billion a year in revenues. Together, they offer flights to some 135 countries and territories worldwide, more than any other global alliance, and more than 550 destinations. Their combined fleet of almost 2​000 aircraft carried 215 million passengers last year.

The cute creatures are pictured, in oneworld's trademark colours or blue, white and shades of black, to illustrate, in a fun, eye-catching way, the benefits the alliance offers – the care it takes of travellers, how it makes passengers more comfortable and provides more opportunities to earn frequent flyer miles and points.

Polar bears are seen, for instance, lounging comfortably in their natural habitat above a headline that reads "It's natural to want to be comfortable", to get across the point that eligible oneworld passengers can gain access to any of its member airlines' airport lounges. A dog is seen, toy bone in mouth above the copyline "it's natural to want to be rewarded" with the text spelling out the wider opportunities oneworld provides to earn and redeem frequent flyer miles.

The new advertising campaign will run in key business magazines and newspapers progressively from today, 1 September (from 4 September in the USA), in almost 50 publications covering scores of countries, and on hundreds of poster sites in 18 countries including the oneworld home bases of Australia, Chile, Ireland, Finland, Spain, the UK and USA. The theme will also feature in brochures and countless other forms of promotional materials. Overall, the campaign will use 17 different languages - including English, Spanish, Finnish, French, Chinese.

John McCulloch, oneworld's Vice-President Marketing, said: "Our research shows that oneworld's initial campaign played a key role in helping build awareness levels for the alliance higher overall than those for any of our competitors in virtually all of our key geographical areas, despite our later entry. The key aim behind our new campaign is to build further on those firm foundations.

"After reviewing the overall market, we decided that now is the time to do something different. Focussing on animals rather than the people we have used to front our advertising in the past - in a way that evokes emotion positively around the world - will achieve this for us. It will differentiate oneworld with an approach that is both warm and light-hearted and which stands out from anything our competitors are doing. It has received a terrific response in all our research."

For a selection of the new advertisements, see our Photo Gallery

Further background on each of the carriers are available on their web sites:

www.aerlingus.ie
www.aa.com
www.britishairways.com
www.cathaypacific.com
www.finnair.com
www.iberia.es
www.lanchile.com
www.qantas.com.au