I’ve raved about British Airways’ “To Fly, To Serve” ad campaign and its 2012 London Olympic ad, but sometimes ads just miss the mark–even if it is not deliberate. I present BA’s latest ad campaign rolled out at London’s Euston Railway Station:
From @funnytweets
Talk about a fail. Now in BA’s defense, this ad was created months ago so it is not like BA pulled a Spirit Airlines on us–but it is still a cringe-worthy ad in light of MH370 likely resting somewhere deep in the Indian Ocean.
BA has sensibly removed the ad.
Timing Fail…
Seriously…this is a blog post? Amazing. Obviously it was created before MH370 and not sure if you know but the Indian Ocean is huge and encompasses many countries, not just the final resting place of a tragic event. This is like saying a campaign mentioning San Francisco soon after the Asiana crash is a fail. I don’t get it.
@Andy: Thanks for clicking through!
I believe the ad is self-evident in the context of MH370, and clearly distinguishable from your SF analogy, but you are free to draw your own conclusion.
Ok I was struggling for an analogy and maybe that was not so relevant. My point being is do you ever get out a map? The Indian Ocean is absolutely vast, running from Africa to Australia and massive length ways also. I used to live in Mauritius (working for an airline) in the Indian Ocean it is 10 hours to Australia from there and 4 to SA in the opposite direction, around 8 to India in another direction. All over the Indian Ocean. It’s like some people have never heard of the “region” before MH370. If the ad said lose yourself in the Ocean, I would understand the jeers of “fail” but it said discover. You are right, I am entitled to my opinion as you are too, and many share your view it seems. It really doesn’t matter… I just think it’s a shame with all the BS about this terrible event, to add to it. As an aviation professional and ex airline pilot, I feel deeply for the families of the crew and passengers, and any ad campaign pales in insignificance to me, and I don’t really agree with potential sniggering or negative comments in an extremely tenuous link to the event. But….thanks for your genuine work on other posts!!