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Best Airline Ad Ever!

6/4/2008 35 comments

southwest flights

This ran as part of a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal yesterday. Pure brilliance.

Underneath what’s pictured above were these sentences:

No 1st or 2nd Checked Bag Fees

No Change Fees

No Fuel Surcharges

No Snack Fees

No Aisle or Window Seat Fees

No Curbside Checkin Fees

No Phone Reservation Fees

Yes, there are plenty of good reasons why Southwest trounces the competition in customer satisfaction surveys, but this ad sums the main one up nicely. I know what I pay for a ticket is the final price and, to borrow their language, they won’t #$*!% me over.

Now if only they would start flying to Latin America…

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Written by jessie voigts on 6/4/2008. Reply

tim – i can’t stop laughing! thanks!
Written by Paul Decker on 6/4/2008. Reply

Congratulations to SW and its agency
for consistently good work. This ad
is terrific. Once again I feel
good moving about the country on SW.
Written by Yannis on 6/5/2008. Reply

Aggressive and risky, but nice. Good job S.W.
Written by Abby on 6/5/2008. Reply

Fabulous! I think charging people for checking bags is ridiculous. SW was smart enough to plan ahead for the rise in gas prices, and because they truly value customer service, I feel good about flying with them.
Written by Ray on 6/5/2008. Reply

Quite unprofessional and very rude. I would rather fly a decent airline.
Written by Steve on 6/5/2008. Reply

Hmmm…i’ve got no gripe with the ad campaign, but i flew southwest from providence to phoenix 3 times in ’03-’04, for 196 roundtrip….now it’s nearly double that price, even with the “wanna-get-away special”…4-5 years ago, they had ‘internet specials’ instead, which were MUCH better deals. I was thinking about making a trip out to el paso this month (from providence), and southwest’s absolute cheapest roundtrip fare was $475 bucks – and they service both providence and el paso!

what do you think, tim?
Written by tim on 6/5/2008. Reply

Thanks for the comments everyone. Steve, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the price of fuel has more than tripled since you flew four or five years ago. Fares are rising around the world accordingly. No way around it unless we all stop consuming so much energy and demand falls. But at least SW is up front about it and the price is the price. No surprises.
Written by rp on 6/5/2008. Reply

great add, brave and exciting, good work who ever the writer/exec & clients fun and ballsy.
Written by Mike on 6/5/2008. Reply

I’d rather fly an unprofessional airline that swears in its ads than try to deal with “professional” corporate con artists.
Written by DML on 6/6/2008. Reply

Mike, I completely agree!!!
Written by Barnegat Blummis on 6/6/2008. Reply

I love love love Southwest. Funniest, fastest, politest, cheapest, least lost baggage, least late planes. So you board in weird groups, who cares?
Written by Dave on 6/6/2008. Reply

Very nice ad, goes straight to the point. I wonder which agency they use.
Written by Jordan on 6/6/2008. Reply

I like that there are *five* symbols in the expletive-deleted, there.

So, if anyone were to complain, Southwest could argue they had censored the word ‘screw’ and not ‘fuck’.

That is some serious cleverness.
Written by tim on 6/6/2008. Reply

Jordan–I noticed that too, but only the 4th or 5th time I saw it. I think you’re right…
Written by matt on 6/6/2008. Reply

this is absolutely hillarious! and strangely true.
Written by John on 6/7/2008. Reply

SW has raised fares, but within limits of what can be accounted for in their costs. As for some comments about cheap fares disappearing… well, YEAH. After 911 there were lots of special fares… no one was flying! Now, the planes are full because everyone flies again. Full planes, no special fares, empty planes, they run specials and fill them up. After all, cheap seats still build revenue whereas empty seats are a loss opportunity.
Written by John on 6/7/2008. Reply

The best thing about SWA is that I am NOT trapped into sitting next to someone by random selection. In other words, the absolute best perk they have is that I get to be on the plane, look at people and the density of the flight, and then select a seat of my own choosing. People that want assigned seating are idiots… and I hope they get trapped next to the crying baby often.
Written by Jeff on 6/9/2008. Reply

Being a large man, I have been concerned about airlines charging, “by the pound” which is on its face rediculous. The difference in weight between a dwarf and a Samoan wrestler is insignificant to modern commercial airlines. They haul tons of cargo and other materials besides the passengers in their holds. If they want to raise thier prices because fuel costs are high spread the price across the entire group.
Written by nascar on 6/10/2008. Reply

hahaha, this is such a great ad.
Written by craptastic on 6/12/2008. Reply

“Awesome”- I “LOL’d”!!! This is the greatest thing I’ve seen on the web! I give it 4 stars! “Oops, I just got a boner when I realized that I’m going to see my name published on the “web”!”
Written by November on 6/13/2008. Reply

Love, love, love it.

I’ve used many different airlines- I’ve been flying trans-pacifically since I was, well, one, and have crossed the US, the pacific and the atlantic many times. SW is the only one I’ve never had a complaint with, for short or longer hauls. Their staff has always been excellent, that perfect blend of courtesy and friendly.

If you work for SW and you see this, thanks for making flying tolerable!
Written by Grigori on 6/17/2008. Reply

fantastic… translate to reality, and is really funny!!!
now, how about flying to south america???
Written by SW passenger on 6/21/2008. Reply

SW is the shit, its the ONE airline terrorists will NEVER hijack, cause the passengers will kill them and they know it!!
I love SW, the stewards and stewardesses are HILARIOUS (an asian Elvis giving safety briefing!!) the pilots are NEVER stuffy and give the funniest flight info ever.
This airline rocks.
I also agree with SW’s seating, first come first serve, it rocks.
As for the ad, it is SW at its best, keep up the GREAT WORK
Written by Ion Home Inspection on 6/22/2008. Reply

Living here in Texas I almost exclusively use SW especially traveling for my home inspection association meetings. No muss no fuss as they say. This ad speaks right to that point.

Jeffrey
IonHomeInspection.com
Houston, Katy, Sugar Land
Written by Vicky on 6/23/2008. Reply

Love it. My son is in the Army and flies often.
Written by Levitra on 6/24/2008. Reply

southwest really is the best airline. very unconventional and fun, but still reliable.
Written by Cassyt on 6/27/2008. Reply

FYI- My husband, son & about 20 parents & children got stuck in Baltimore, Detroit and Chicago for 30 hours due to a minor error by SW and some weather. Without anyone writing or emailing the airline-SW sent each person in the group a $250 voucher and 2 very nice, sincere letters written and mailed the day after the flights finally ended.

Now, if they’d just fly to Minneapolis!
Written by Travel Guide on 7/27/2008. Reply

Nice. The ads nowadays are innovative or rather has to be competitive to beat the neck to neck tie for market leadership.
Written by Eric on 7/29/2008. Reply

The stuff Airlines are getting away with now is a little on the insane side – Air Canada does this thing called guaranteed seating where you’ve got to pay an extra fee to guarantee your flight – if you don’t pay for it and the flight is fully booked, someone else can come along, pay the fee, and bump you off. Lovely. Really glad to hear SW has chosen a different approach!
Written by The Fitness Diva on 10/1/2008. Reply

That is just freaking hilarious! :D
Written by Arnie | Link Building Tips on 11/3/2008. Reply

Not a big fan of Southwest as an airline – I just hate not having a reserved seat – but I have to admit their ad campaigns are some of the best going. And I might just switch to them based on all these fees!
Written by Ray Creations on 1/17/2009. Reply

A bold campaign to run for an airline.
Written by Sam Melbourne on 8/18/2010. Reply

I love it. 5 stars to the agency whoever invented this concept. Normally airlines and many other industries are so dull and dry. This gets my vote for sure.
Written by Patrick on 11/21/2010. Reply

Haha that is quite a bold move! I don’t think they would get away with an advert like this in England though. However, they have similar public fights in adverts between budget airlines here – Ryan Air and EsayJet for example. Ryan Air pulled up to the EasyJet headquarters in a tank for example!
Written by Wamy on 5/3/2011. Reply

Aggressive and risky, but nice. Good job S.W. and now they are going to acquire airtran … veryy nice

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