[VIDEO] Emirates’ Latest Marketing Campaign – Upgrade Your Airline, Not Just Your Seat

a woman wearing a red hat

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Emirates has unveiled a new marketing campaign in which it encourages travelers to upgrade the airline they’re flying on and not just their seat.

The latest campaign pokes fun at travelers who try all kinds of tricks to try to score an upgrade (we’ve all seen them!) and ends with an apparently contented traveler checking in with Emirates.

Here’s how Emirates describes the new campaign…

Emirates’ latest ads feature a series of characters who try to wrangle a seat upgrade at an unnamed airline’s check-in counter. Each spot ends with the ultimate tip for travellers: “Don’t upgrade your seat, upgrade your airline. Fly Emirates.”

Seasoned with a liberal dose of humour, the scripts tap into a rich vein of anecdotes about what people might say or do when they ask for an upgrade – from name-dropping and flattery to other more creative endeavours.

…and here’s the main video the airline has released:

Emirates’ Divisional Senior Vice President of Corporate Communications, Marketing and Brand is quoted as saying:

Emirates’ Economy Class is well known for being a true, full-service product. We offer excellent value for money, with world-class inflight entertainment in every seat, full course gourmet meals, generous free baggage allowances, and great service.

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?

Emirates has also released three other short videos (extracts of which all appear in the main video above) to further hammer home the point:

I’m not going to say that these videos are brilliant or innovative but I do enjoy marketing campaigns based on humor which is based loosely on real life…so these spots tick all the boxes for me. Added to that I like the idea that Emirates is attempting to sell – that the whole aircraft/airline is an upgrade, not just a specific cabin – and I think that could resonate with quite a few travelers.

What do you guys think of these videos? Do they get a message over or are they missing the mark? 

2 COMMENTS

  1. Oh dear EK, how the mighty have fallen.

    So they can’t win Best First – because it’s crap, they can’t win Best Business – because it’s crap, they can’t win Best Airline – because it’s still crap, so I guess they advertise the only thing they do have left, Best Economy LOL.

    What a sick and sorry joke EK have become. So sad. Actually not sad at all.

    Meanwhile, the country EK’s Lords and Masters and El-Sheiko’s have tried to destroy, Qatar, well they continue to thrive, continue to be innovative and continue to have the Best Airline in the World.

    When it comes to EK v QR, it’s no contest your Honour. Best Economy, goodness me EK. How low can you stoop.

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