Skift Take
Promising too much, too soon? DEN, IAH and CLE friendly? Surely weary New Yorkers would care, right?
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- OK, this makes sense, we’re live here.
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- Even the dirty subway pillars aren’t spared, at least we can now lean against them, for a few days.
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- Generic phrases, anyone?
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- You walked into this one: United, and tech savvy?
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- More generic-ness…
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- We get it, but lets not go overboard with this…
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- This works for us, DC shuttle.
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- Why?
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- Oh why?
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- Oh, why…
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- Everyone’s making it harder to achieve status, and United added minimum spend requirement recently, so sorta-true…
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- Largest airline, so ok, true.
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- For a U.S. airline, yes.
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- Nevermind Economy people…
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- True
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- If it works….
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- If they can reach in time…
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- By when?
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- OK, we’re done snarking…
United Airlines recently revived its iconic “Fly The Friendly Skies” campaign in an attempt to fight back against its ongoing un-friendly problems with technology, customer service, on-time-performance, and others. The original campaign ran from 1965 to 1996 in a 31-year run that changed the face of airline marketing in America.
The new 2013 campaign combines TV, print, online and outdoor, with riffs on the word “friendly,” with phrases such as “legroom friendly” or “online friendly” or “shut-eye friendly,” among others.
But is United overdoing it? It has started plastering these ads inside New York City subways stations, and we encountered these yesterday at the 42nd Street-Bryant Park Station, with at least 25 different variations of the phrase.
Some of its “friendly” phrases border on ridiculous, or just sound desperate. They better back it up, or an SNL skit or an Onion parody will soon follow.
We took photos of 15+ variations of the theme, above, you decide.
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Tags: united airlines