United's Recent Advertising Hit Is...

TravelDude

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Nov 21, 2003
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United's Recent Advertising Hit is Just the Latest in a Long Line of Successes
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United's new print and television advertising
continues to garner attention and praise, most
recently in the March 4 edition of the New York
Times and in yesterday's Ad Age, in which a
historically tough critic describes 'Interview' as
"utterly irresistible, a dramatic and endearing
introduction to the airline's new 'It's Time to Fly'
campaign." However, this attention is only the most
recent in a series of highly regarded advertising
initiatives prior to this campaign. For work in
2002 and 2003, United recently received numerous
accolades and awards around the world.

"The widespread acclaim for United's advertising
attests to our marketing teams' and agency partners'
creativity, insight and relentless drive to engage
our customers through great advertising," says John
Tague, executive vice president-Customer. "We are
especially pleased about our new campaign and
flattered by the praise it's already received from
employees, customers, the media and even the
toughest critics in the world of advertising."

At the prestigious Cannes Festival, three United
television spots from last year were on the
shortlist for awards, a notable achievement in the
airline category. Two of the ads were part of
United's campaign in Brazil, and the other one aired
in Europe. The same European ad was awarded 'Best
Television Commercial' at the 2003 British
Television Advertising Awards for the transportation
category.

In addition to making Cannes' shortlist, United's
advertising in Latin America won 'Best TV
Commercial' at Folha de Sao Paulo/Revista da Criacao
Awards. The advertising also received extensive
attention from the prestigious financial newspaper,
Estrategia.

In Europe, United's entire 2003 campaign won 'Best
Pan-European Campaign' at the Meribel Film Festival
in France. United beat out advertising heavyweights
Sony, Nissan, Evian, Ikea and Air France in the
competition.

Another 'best of 2003' acknowledgement came from
Adweek magazine, who told advertising professionals
around the world that United produced one of the
'Top 50 Television Spots of 2003.'

In Great Britain, the travel advertising world
acknowledged United's 2003 advertising with seven of
the nine Travel Advertising Awards from the
Chartered Institute of Marketing/Travel Industry
Group, more than British Airways and Virgin
combined.

And for 2003 work in Asia, United was recently a
finalist in the 'Media Advertising' and 'Asia
Pacific Adfest' awards. Not a stranger to praise in
Asia, United in 2002 won two bronze awards in the
Singapore Creative Circle Awards and recognition
from the Association of Accredited Advertising
Agents of Hong Kong.
 
Are the awards based on Consumer feedback or are they based on Ad Executive feedback? I am impressed with UA commercials most of the time. I haven't seen any of the new ones, but my favorite ones were from the "Rising" campaign.
 
coolflyingfool said:
but my favorite ones were from the "Rising" campaign.
Interesting, those are the ones I least liked. In fact that campaign bombed and was pulled earlier than scheduled.
 
A second ad is now out as part of the new campaign:

Taken from PR Release:
"Dubbed "Lightbulb," the new ad employs an elegant visual style and incorporates the tagline, "It's time to fly." The voice-over tagline is read by Robert Redford."


Anyone have a link to this new commercial that can be viewed online?
 
I really can't think of anything that UA's done right in the past few months, but this very nice ad seems to break the streak. Then again, one could argue it's the ad agency that did it. ;)
 
TravelDude, thanks for the links. I tend to agree that I like "Interview" better. I do like "Light bulb"; but, it seems to "move" too fast. Yes, its got to fit a time frame; but, perhaps they could have deleted a few frames to make it a bit "slower".
 
Am I the only one who doesn't like these commercials? I personally think they are horrible, and agree with coolflyingfool that the "Rising" campaign was much, much better. Oh well, I still haven't seen the UAL ads on TV, so it doesn't bother me too much.
 

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