How Creative Can Airport Ads Be? Lisbon Airport Shows The Way

Advertising promoting airports can get pretty boring. Most of the creatives centers around routes and connections, and there aren’t that many ways to make them interesting. Historically a majority of the campaigns have been aimed at travel industry trade professionals, and few airports around the world have attempted consumer advertising.

But Lisbon Airport, owned by ANA Aeroportos de Portugal, the main airport authority in the country, has been doing some great print advertising since finishing the first part of its refurbishment in 2008.

This year the airport fully finished up its remodeling and has come out with three brilliant print ads, with a twist on illustrating the routes and airports it connects to (it is TAP Portugal’s home base, so that helps).

These ads, created by BBDO Portugal, use the outline of a bird’s body to illustrate the direct flights from Lisbon Airport, with the tagline “Flyers Choose Lisbon.” The three birds in focus here are swallows, mallards and storks, with gorgeous strokes all over their bodies denoting the direct flight route maps from the originating Lisbon airport.

There is a precedent for this campaign: in 2008, the airport came out with a campaign announcing its first remodeling, and using new hairstyles as route illustrations with the tagline “Lisbon Airport has a new look.” Also created by BBDO, the campaign then won a few advertising awards, and with this latest campaign, expect a lot more.