Morning. How are you all?
Hope you had a good weekend and are feeling relaxed, healthy and happy.
Don’t worry, I haven’t become ‘nice’, I am just making sure you are in the right frame of mind before I subject you to something so horrific, you might require hospital treatment.
Before I get to that, I need to say something.
Sorry TBWA.
Yep … I’m apologising.
What for?
Well we’ll get to that in a minute.
The thing is, I’ve always been a fan of TBWA.
Sure they seem to now spend more time talking about ‘disruption’ than doing it … but when its led to them creating such brilliant campaigns for ADIDAS, PlayStation and Apple, you know it’s something that still lives throughout the company.
[And that’s just the ‘glory brands’, they’ve done consistently awesome work – if not as well known – for a whole host of companies, with their NZ, SA & Amsterdam offices being especially prolific]
Anyway, the reason I owe them an apology is because I have given them a bit of a hard time as of late.
Singapore Airlines … Pepsi … Visa … they’ve all copped a certain amount of my shit.
To be fair to me, I did say at the time that I felt the [bad] quality of the work was more to do with client interference than the agency themselves … however that still doesn’t excuse the fact their work for Visa is about as appropriate as inviting Gary Glitter to a children’s birthday party … their ‘Goodbye Michael’ Pepsi ad had all the taste of a 50 year old Russian Oil Billionaire’s wife and their SIA everything is one of the biggest disasters the airline industry has ever seen.
Or is it?
Well, in the case of the VISA and Pepsi debacles, I think the answer is a resounding ‘yes’ … however as much as I [1] don’t think the SIA work does any credit to the truly magnificent experience you get when you fly SIA [2] the campaign makes the brand look totally and utterly ‘beige’ and [3] it offers no reason to choose SIA over another airline … I have had something brought to my attention that shows that as bad as it is, it’s still not as bad as some of the stuff they used to churn out.
Before I show it, I should point out that I know the ad from a very long time ago, however there’s 2 things that don’t let that get used as a decent excuse …
1/ SIA’s international reputation was built – genuinely built – on great advertising, so it’s not like they weren’t used to doing good stuff.
2/ My Mum is quite old and she has managed to be consistently brilliant and relevant throughout the years.
Jesus, how bad is that eh? And why do SIA girls only take one outfit with them? Are they thick or just badly paid? Boom Tish. [Copyright Media Mag]
In all seriousness, that’s really terrible isn’t it.
And they can’t even use the excuse that it was ‘a reflection of the time’ because as I mentioned earlier, they’d already done some great, timeless work prior to this abomination.
For a brand that pioneered so much … from using their hostesses to symbolise ‘service’ [something every airline has tried to copy since – even though interms of ‘real experience’, only a few can claim to be anywhere close] through to identifying the potential in being the first to order and operate the absolutelyfuckinghuge A380 … it’s tragic that where their communication was concerned, they allowed the Singaporean trait of ‘conservatism’ to erode the vision, drive, bravery and genius that had been so instrumental in helping them build such an airline superpower in the first place.
In other words, while SIA may not of been the sort of brand people expected to come from as small a country as Singapore … their advertising most definitely was.
Sadly, instead of going back to making the sort of great communication that had helped them build such a strong emotional connection with so many people, they succumbed to the clichéd and aspirationally bland ad style of so many Asian brands … and when, for all intents and purposes, SIA basically represents their country of origin to the wider World [especially to Western audiences, who otherwise only know the island by such clichés as ‘no chewing gum, no drugs, capital punishment and disturbingly clean streets’] I can’t help but feel continuing this approach has the potential to undermine both the airline and the country as a whole.
SIA is one of those rare brands where the product is way, way, way better than the ads … and putting aside the fact their communication is similar to all the other twaddle put out by the airline industry [which is especially outrageous when the actual flying experience is so far ahead of most of them] I can’t help but feel that if someone who doesn’t know Singapore sees the campaign, it almost reinforces all the preconceived conceptions of the country and that is both unfair and unjust because it really is a wonderful place.
So taking all this into account, I want to formally apologise to TBWA for the piss I took out of their ads.
As I said previously, in my heart-of-hearts I knew they were pretty much innocent in all of this – not just because I knew they had Freddie pushing like a demon for them to embrace the right path again – but because TBWA are pretty bloody good, especially for a massive network … so I leave this post with the simple hope that SIA go back to the times where they wanted to change the skies forever, because the attitude of ‘flying with the best’ isn’t the same as the one that got them where they now reside: to be the best.
A great brand experience deserves great brand advertising … please SIA, aim higher.