Hard clamshell suitcases in red, yellow and blue (the
company colors of Southwest Airlines) are set up like dominos in a large trail
from an downtown city locale (I’m guessing a hotel or a business), forking off
in different directions, presumably leading to different gates at the airport
for loading onto Southwest planes in this colorful and pithy ad for (surprise!)
Southwest airlines. (I originally though this was a commercial for Samsonite
luggage, as this type of scenario might be well suited for making the case that
their suitcases are tough, etc., by knocking them around and making them fall
over and such.) But if this is what they do with our luggage (put them in
unsupervised domino setups and knock them all over, then it’s no surprise that
airlines always seem to lose so many of our bags (in addition to having stuff
stolen out of our checked luggage)! Plus, since these bags do not appear to go
through any kind of security checkpoint, then isn’t this going to leave our
airplanes vulnerable to terrorist attacks, and isn’t this commercial,
advertising that they load luggage on the plane in this manner, going to alert
terrorists to this exploitable vulnerability?
I am joking above (although this ad does open itself for
this type of mixed interpretation due to its scenario), and I like this ad for
being fun and colorful, but it seems to me there is a better solution to this
“bags fly free” message. Just think about that statement: “Bags fly free” for a
minute: what does that bring to mind? Well, for me, I think of a group of
people waiting in line to buy an airline ticket (I know, that doesn’t happen
much like this very often these days, but just as the first in a campaign of
similarly-themed commercials, I think it would stand out.), and they each go up
and pay to get their airline ticket. Then, one of the people in line gets up to
the ticket counter, and it’s a guy dressed up as a suitcase, and he pulls his
wallet out, but the Southwest ticket agent just hands him the ticket and says:
“Oh, you don’t have to pay, sir: bags fly free on Southwest Airlines!” That
would communicate this “bags fly free” message simply and directly, and you
would even get it with the sound off, especially if they wrote “Bags Fly Free”
on the screen at the end.
Then, after this initial setup spot, further ads in this
campaign could have the guy dressed up as a suitcase buying airline tickets
over the Internet, and being charged $0.00 because he’s a bag, etc. And just to
make the message sink in even further, then the bag could go to another
business website and try to get something else for free, only to be charged for
it, be it a pizza, an article of clothing, a movie ticket, or a porn site. And
in the next ad, the bag could set up flights through a travel agency, and the
travel agent says something like: “If you fly on Delta (or whatever other
airline), it would be $683.00, but if you fly on Southwest, if would be free.
Because you’re a bag, and bags fly free on Southwest Airlines!” And each time,
this message of “bags fly free” would be immediately and simply communicated
and understood with no chance of having the viewer being distracted by other
elements in the scenario that are perhaps sending out other signals which could
be misinterpreted somehow.
Here’s the cheap carrier’s checked case commercial:
