HOW DO YOU DIFFERENTIATE A PRODUCT THAT’S ALMOST COMPLETELY UNDIFFERENTIATED?

This is a subject that always causes anxiety, but it doesn’t need to. As we’ve discussed previously in this blog, very few products today stand out as being superior. As much as you probably love your iPhone, there are lots of folks who still swear by their BlackBerry or Android.

So, in a world where objective superiority is really hard to establish, you’re left to duke it out for tiny patches of emotional ground. Nowhere is this more true than in the category of air travel. Flying probably hasn’t been much fun since the 1960s. Even before 9/11, planes were cramped and smelly and uncomfortable. And these days, even if you’re flying first class, you’ll still be waiting in Security for someone to check your junk through a latex glove. No, not much fun at all. But somehow, lots of post-9/11 advertisers have managed to make their airlines seems special. Some have done it by talking up relatively small service advantages (wider seats or better food, for example). Others have more or less skipped past the travel part in order to get straight to the benefits of getting to where you want to be.

Let’s go through some of these approaches.

After 9/11, a shocked America was uncertain about its place in the world, and even more uncertain about air travel. United Airlines eventually answered that unease through a campaign by Fallon (Minneapolis) called “It’s time to fly.” It was a super-smart campaign in that it went after the industry’s most profitable customer – the business traveller. Rather than talk about legroom or priority check-in, the campaign simply said that successful business requires you to see your clients in person.  Check out one of their TV spots by clicking the link below the screen grab:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nU5DasW5nUY&feature=related

This is a lovely spot largely because of its wonderful, old-school animation (very reminiscent of the painstaking executions that were done in the 1960s). The soundtrack is also very cleverly chosen:  It’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” composed by America’s George Gershwin at time when the U.S. was indisputably the world’s leader in conduct, sophistication and power.

The print is similarly smart:

Now, some people might say, “Wait a minute!  Any airline could say that!”

To which I want to say, “Schtop!”

Memorize the following answer, because you’ll be needing it: “Yes, that’s true. As with any emotional proposition, it’s available to any and all advertisers. But if we’re the first to say it and say it well, nobody will ever be able to claim that ground in the future. It’s kind of like Nike: Anybody could have said ‘Just Do It’ thirty years ago, but nobody did. And today, that idea couldn’t possibly belong to anyone else.” Just make sure you’re smiling when you say it.

Okay, here’s a little ambient stunt that deals with the airline’s on-time record. I don’t believe what it’s saying, but it was a fun and award-friendly kind of idea:

This one’s about the freedom of air travel. I think it’s a little “meh,” but I wanted you to see it as part of the range of what’s possible:

These next two are extremely clever. They make a huge deal about the fact that their seats tilt right back to allow passengers to lie flat:

A fantastic campaign here. It’s all about comfort and service, but it makes a very witty joke about the fact that today, excellent airline service seems literally alien:

I also really like this campaign. It uses hyperbole (outrageous exaggeration) to tell us that United’s seats offer a huge amount of room:

Not crazy about the following campaign, but I sympathize with the creative team’s impossible task. On one hand, they were asked to promote the benefit of a great destination (Australia), and they did so very nicely, but because it’s Singapore Airlines, they had to somehow incorporate the sexist/racist icon of the “Singapore Girl,” who attends solicitously to the traveller’s every need. The dual focus is unfortunately the campaign’s undoing:

This final campaign is freakin’ genius. It’s all about Virgin Airlines’ 59 channels of inflight entertainment. They’ve promoted it through a brilliant human insight about air travel, which is to say, the agony of being seated next to a non-stop talker. They’ve made that insight funny by presenting it as the terrifying plot of one of the movies you can view during your flight: