The surprising secret behind the latest Emirates marketing campaign

Google, "How to get an airline upgrade?" and you’ll get back almost 7,000 results with hundreds of different travel websites, blogs and newspapers giving you advice ranging from “dress up” to “fly solo.”

Of course, following the advice you get in these articles hardly ever works. What’s more common is that airline staff are regularly given spurious excuses from passengers trying to chance it.

According to the UK’s Daily Telegraph, upgrade reasons head by Virgin Atlantic staff range from “My newborn baby has claustrophobia,” to “Manchester United lost today, I am really upset and need the space to get over it.” 

Emirates has taken the idea of people trying to blag their way to an upgrade and made a campaign out of it. But rather than tell people to upgrade their seat, Emirates is telling passengers to ‘upgrade your airline.’

A 30 second TV and online video spot developed by ad agency Y&R sees passengers walk up to a check-in desk of an unnamed airline. Passengers then try and give the check-in desk staff flowers, have ‘happy birthday’ balloons tied to them, attempt to hypnotise them or try and flatter them with phrases such as “have you thought of being a model?”

The spot finishes with a man walking up to an Emirates check-in desk with the strapline ‘Don’t upgrade your seat, upgrade your airline’ along with a Tripadvisor badge on screen about Emirates having the best economy class in the world.

In a statement to Marketing magazine, Emirates said that it had decided to take an ‘unorthodox’ approach to this campaign by not actually showing the product and only revealing the brand all the way at the end.

In addition to linking into the whole “how to get an upgrade” folklore, Emirates’ said it was also taking a dig at other airlines steadily reducing the frills on offer in economy.

“In today’s environment where others are stripping amenities from their cabins and shrinking legroom, we believe travellers can relate to the desperate lengths that some people might go to, in order to get their seat upgraded. Our message is simple – why try so hard to upgrade your seat when you can fly Emirates instead?” Boutros Boutros, Emirates’ divisional SVP, corporate communications, marketing and brand, said.

Why this spot works so well

Emirates has come up with a good campaign that works for a number of reasons. ‘Can I get an upgrade’ has become a running joke in travel circles, and so the Emirates’ campaign uses humour to link into something most travellers can relate to.

But underneath that, Emirates manages to get across a key message. What’s implicit in the Emirates campaign is that people try and ‘chance it’ with the upgrade line because the economy class experience on a number of airlines has progressively got worse over the past few years.

Few airlines have the confidence to put their economy class cabins front and centre of their ad campaigns. Emirates can do so because the reality matches the brand promise, Emirates still offers a lot (for example free food and drink on shorter flights) that other airlines have cut.

Finally, you could argue that the focus on economy helps the airline as a whole push a ‘premium / quality’ message along the lines of ‘Emirates is even good in economy. Just imagine what they are like in business and first class.’

Surprise - this campaign is over 25 years old!

Yes, you read that right. While it is a refreshing theme to see an airline showcase the lowest category of their product, Emirates has been at this for long. Back in 1992, they released a print advertisement with the title, “How to upgrade your seat to Dubai? Fly Emirates.” This was shared on my Facebook Live episode by Richard Bate, who worked with the airline at that time.

Can you imagine that with the latest campaign, Emirates has just gone back to its roots? It is remarkable for an airline to stay consistent on its brand message for a quarter century!

For the brand to leave an impact, it needs to repeat the same message over time across interactions over an extended period of time. Emirates focused on marketing its economy class in 1992. Over a quarter-century later, it still portrays it as a differentiating factor.

Brand consistency inspires trust. People don't have to keep thinking, "Oh! What's changed? What's new?" Yes, the product needs to change and evolve. But the brand at the base needs to remains the same. It’s the little secret that successful airline brands have known for decades.

Shashank Nigam is the CEO of SimpliFlying and the author of SOAR, the quintessential book on airline marketing. Get your copy at www.simplisoar.com

Note: Parts of this article were printed in the latest edition of Airline Business magazine and SimpliFlying's monthly airline marketing benchmark report.