This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by psa188@xxxxxxxxx /-------------------- advertisement -----------------------\ Explore more of Starbucks at Starbucks.com. http://www.starbucks.com/default.asp?ci=1015 \----------------------------------------------------------/ New Campaign for Alaska Airlines September 30, 2003 By STUART ELLIOTT A FULL-SERVICE airline with a reputation for cheeky creativity is taking satiric aim at no-frills competitors with a campaign about a make-believe rival whose spartan, inconvenient flights and what-me-worry attitude are meant to put the "low" in lower-fare. The campaign, for the Alaska Airlines division of the Alaska Air Group, has as its centerpiece a Web site for an imaginary discount carrier, SkyHigh Airlines, offering visitors an elaborate series of jokes and pranks that make the fake site (www.skyhighairlines.com) more engaging than many real ones. The site carries mock marketing slogans like "Flying is expensive. Let us cheapen the experience" and "Lowering fares. Lowering the bar"; pitches for "Super Scrimper" bargain fares, which turn out to be on the SkyHigh Flightless Eagle bus line; and a letter from the unctuous chief executive of SkyHigh, Howard Barium, that begins, "What is it with you people?" There is also a fiendishly realistic flight-booking engine that continuously routes users through multiple small cities and charges fares in the thousands of dollars for SkyHigh's two classes of service: bench and cargo. "SkyHigh Airlines represents everything frustrating to businesspeople and other travelers who are looking for better service," said Tom Romary, vice president for marketing at Alaska Airlines in Seattle, "and the campaign says there's an alternative." The campaign, created by the longtime Alaska Airlines agency Wong Doody in Seattle, has an estimated budget of $10 million. Kicked off with TV and radio commercials in West Coast markets like Los Angeles and Seattle, it is the latest example of a counterattack by full-service carriers like Alaska, American Airlines and United Airlines against upstart rivals by stressing services like seat selection, meals, first-class seating and nonstop direct flights. Carriers like AirTran Airways, Frontier Airlines, JetBlue Airways and Southwest Airlines are using humor and so-called viral or underground marketing methods to tweak their older, larger competitors, so it is fascinating to watch Alaska Airlines using fire to fight fire. But the tactic is risky for several reasons. "It's wonderfully farcical, and I admire the effort," said Drew Neisser, president and chief executive at the Renegade Marketing Group in New York, owned by Dentsu. "But for this to work it has to strike a real nerve. Otherwise it's `Thanks for the joke, but I'm off to buy my ticket on JetBlue.' " The campaign "has to hit on a real weakness of JetBlue or Southwest," said Mr. Neisser, whose agency specializes in nontraditional and viral ads, "and tap into the emotions of unhappy customers." If not, he added, the ads could be perceived "as if Alaska Airlines was saying, `How come you can't see what you're missing by not taking our flights?' " Alaska Airlines originally introduced SkyHigh in the 1980's with a similarly humorous campaign - minus the Web, of course - created by a previous agency, Livingston & Company in Seattle. The idea was to demonstrate the levels of service on Alaska Airlines by contrasting them with an avatar of how not to run an airline. The device is being revived, said Tracy Wong, chairman and creative director at Wong Doody, "to remind customers about service at a time when everything is about cutting service." "Comedy has its roots in reality," he added, "and our goal is not to take potshots at particular discount airlines but the experience of flying them." In keeping with the unconventional viral-marketing approach, Wong Doody is promulgating the SkyHigh Web address discreetly, mentioning it only at the end of brief radio commercials. By the same token, the references to Alaska Airlines as the actual sponsor, as well as the links to its own site (www.alaskaair.com), are limited and appear fairly far down on various pages. "We wanted to make them more obvious, but the client said no," Mr. Wong said, laughing. As of Friday, there had been more than 70,000 unique visitors to the site, which went up on Sept. 19, he said. Underscoring how widely Internet users can share information about joke Web sites, the agency's data indicate that visitors have come from as far afield as Cuba, Estonia, Latvia, Malta, Tobago and Uzbekistan. "We're hoping this becomes behind-the-scenes marketing for us," said Mr. Romary, adding that there are already positive comments about the campaign in online discussion groups devoted to travel as well as jocular e-mail messages from consumers pretending to be writing to SkyHigh. "We're taking the industry's cost-cutting frenzy to an absurd level with SkyHigh Airlines, whose only focus is cutting costs rather than on customers," Mr. Romary said. "The humor comes from the fact that no company could survive treating its customers like that." One executive with extensive experience in humorous airline advertising praised the Alaska Airlines campaign - up to a point. "I'd like to say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery," said Paul Cappelli, president at the Ad Store in New York, the agency that creates the humorous campaigns for JetBlue. "But if I did, it would mean we're paying homage to Alaska Airlines," he added, because of its heritage of humorous ads. "I think Alaska Airlines can do this," Mr. Cappelli said, "because it's not a huge, major carrier," adding that if a bigger airline tried a similar campaign, it would run the risk "of consumers saying, `You're not giving me anything different except older planes and higher prices.' " Older planes and higher prices? Sounds like another slogan for SkyHigh Airlines. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/30/business/media/30ADCO.html?ex=1065929251&ei=1&en=e1f7217afda52c8c --------------------------------- Get Home Delivery of The New York Times Newspaper. Imagine reading The New York Times any time & anywhere you like! Leisurely catch up on events & expand your horizons. Enjoy now for 50% off Home Delivery! 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