NYTimes.com Article: Major Airlines Increase Advertising

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Major Airlines Increase Advertising

April 2, 2003
By STUART ELLIOTT






IRLINES are slowly beginning to step up advertising despite
the war, because the war may be the least of their
problems.

The slowdown in air travel since the war against Iraq began
is only one difficulty confronting the airline industry,
which is suffering through what is widely considered the
worst time in its history. Advance domestic bookings have
fallen 20 percent from a year ago, according to the Air
Transport Association. That has left the supply of seats
far above demand, which has been cut by the stagnant
economy, the threat of terrorist acts, concerns about the
financial health of many large carriers and now the war.

And to add illness to injury, there are increasing worries
that air travel is helping spread a mysterious
pneumonia-like disease, which led California officials
yesterday to quarantine an American Airlines plane arriving
at San Jose International Airport from Tokyo.

The additional ads in the last few days, from online
sellers of airline tickets as well as the carriers
themselves, reflect the industry's perilous condition.
There is a widespread perception that, as the saying goes,
in good times you should advertise, but in bad times you
must.

"The war is having enough of a suppressing effect on
bookings and traffic that we didn't need to compound it by
making ourselves invisible," said David Messing, a
spokesman for Continental Airlines in Houston, so the
airline decided to continue "with our regular activities."

"We want travelers and potential travelers to know we're
ready when they are," Mr. Messing said, unintentionally
echoing an old slogan of a competitor, Delta Air Lines. The
Continental efforts include print and outdoor ads by the
Kaplan Thaler Group in New York, part of the Publicis
Groupe, which carry a theme that seems particularly
appropriate: "Work Hard. Fly Right."

At Delta, "because the war was slow-building, we developed
a war contingency plan," said Carter Etherington, United
States manager for marketing communications. The plan
included television, radio and print ads in regional
markets like Atlanta, Boston and New York.

"The majority of our advertising is geared toward how Delta
is making travel safer, more efficient and more enjoyable,"
Mr. Etherington said, "and especially in New York, we're
touting security and technology."

"If we were to stop our advertising, it would be a
knee-jerk reaction," he added, "rather than to show support
of the United States and the economy" by trying to
stimulate business.

At Orbitz, the online ticket broker owned by a consortium
of major carriers, "We started to see a definite decline in
demand, especially in international travel, a couple of
days before the war started, so we decided to pull back
some marketing support," said Michael Sands, the chief
marketing officer, in Chicago. Those cutbacks included
newspaper ads and so-called pop-under ads on Web sites, he
said.

"But now we see demand as coming back, so we're going to be
aggressive in advertising," Mr. Sands said. "It's hard to
countervail the American people's desire to travel, and
people want to book their summer travel plans, particularly
for early summer."

The pop-under ads on news Web sites, which were eliminated
because "it would not have been appropriate to be there in
the early stages of the war," he said, are returning this
week; some came back yesterday.

That sensitivity to the national mood is prevalent
throughout the industry.

"We may be taking a much closer look at consumer
perceptions, hour by hour, so to speak, instead of day by
day," said Eric Webber, a vice president at GSD&M in
Austin, Tex., the Omnicom Group agency that has long
created campaigns for Southwest Airlines.

"So far we're moving ahead and aren't making any changes,"
Mr. Webber said, other than "moving away our commercials
from some news programming" after the war started.

"In fact, we just shot six new spots in the last couple
weeks," he said.

Another low-fare carrier, JetBlue Airways, also filmed
commercials in the last two weeks.

"JetBlue went off the air for 48 hours after the war
started, then went back on with a regular schedule," said
Brian Flatow, senior vice president at the Ad Store in New
York, the JetBlue agency.

The new spots will be in the same humorous vein that has
characterized the Ad Store's work for JetBlue, Mr. Flatow
said, because "we feel our message is positive and
uplifting." One commercial, meant to show "that you come
off a JetBlue plane a happier person," he added, presents
vignettes that include "3-year-old twins pushing their mom
in a stroller and a dog kissing a cat."

Another carrier known for humorous campaigns is Virgin
Atlantic Airways, part of the Virgin Group. Virgin Atlantic
has continued its lighthearted pitches in "below-the-line
channels like e-mail marketing, the Web and public
relations, the sharpest tool in our marketing drawer," said
John Riordan, the vice president for marketing in North
America, in Norwalk, Conn.

Virgin Atlantic has not been running the more costly
television and print ads, Mr. Riordan said, because the
company is conducting a review for its creative and media
account, with billings estimated at $12 million to $15
million.

"We have to balance market stimulation with cash
conservation," he added. "We will choose the right time to
get back in, and get back in we will."

Also husbanding its resources is US Airways, which emerged
from Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Monday. The carrier is going
ahead with limited ad plans, said David Castelveter, a
spokesman for the US Airways Group in Arlington, Va. Those
include e-mail marketing and newsletters for members of the
US Airways frequent-flier program, called Dividend Miles.

As US Airways emerged from bankruptcy, American Airlines,
the unit of the AMR Corporation that is the world's largest
carrier, reached tentative concession agreements with three
major unions, helping avert a bankruptcy filing.

American "put advertising on hiatus," said Tim Kincaid, a
spokesman, "to monitor how things evolved," and plans "to
resume sometime in mid-April."

United Airlines, part of the UAL Corporation, has primarily
been communicating with customers through e-mail, though it
is also moving ahead with ads to which it has made
long-term commitments.

"Right now, we're somewhere between not running ads and
needing to drive revenue by starting to get butts into the
seats," said Alex Leikikh, worldwide account director on
the United account at the carrier's agency, Fallon
Worldwide in Minneapolis, part of Publicis. "We're
monitoring this on a daily basis, and we plan a meeting
with the client this week to figure it out."

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/02/business/media/02ADCO.html?ex=1050295310&ei=1&en=66e3f9beefe97854



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