Ad Age to Airlines: "Don't Advertise"

“At certain moments, advertising—no matter how cunningly crafted—is incapable of sending its intended message. At certain moments, it is capable only of triggering associations with the larger story in the public mind. That’s one reason you haven’t seen a lot of bank commercials lately offering fast, convenient refinancing.”

Bob Garfield’s “AdReview” column in the August 25 issue of Advertising Age goes on to suggest that on the same principle, at a time when air travel has become utterly snackless, frill-less, and unpleasant, lush new ads for United Airlines that got heavy play during the Beijing Olympics—and were created by Minneapolis shop Barrie D’Rozario Murphy—shouldn’t be running either.

“What’s hilarious,” says Bob Barrie, the firm’s executive creative director, is that on the flip side of the page, Ad Age lauds the “Sea Orchestra” spot from the campaign (sea creatures serenade a passing United flight with their rendition of Rhapsody in Blue) among the top five most creative ads running that week.

“If you look at [Garfield’s column], he didn’t attack the commercials so much as he attacked United’s right to run commercials during difficult times in the airline industry,” Barrie says. “And in my opinion this is, of course, absurd.” A creative team always has to keep in mind the context for a campaign, he adds, but tough times aren’t the time to withdraw from the field—especially when United is advertising new premium service in international business class that addresses some of the very no-food, no-comfort woes that Garfield cites.

The campaign was praised by other reviewers to a point that Barrie found “almost embarrassing,” including in the New York Times and Chicago Sun-Times. “Within United, it’s considered a huge success,” he says.

And then there was this bit of affirmation—a letter to Garfield from Mike Lescarbeau, president and CCO of Minneapolis agency Carmichael Lynch, that appeared on the Ad Age site a few days after the review: “Bob, you get it so right so often, but this review feels phoned in . . . . Do you really believe no airline should spend on advertising in the current environment, or was that just the least tenuous link you could find between this already lauded campaign and the angry-frequent-flier story you wanted to write? This piece gives off the strong whiff of a looming deadline. No wonder they’re taking your nuts away.”