Airline Advertising

[ross_M]

Companies always advertise cost, leg-space, food, decor, in-flight entertainment, routes etc. but I've never seen an advertisement selling "safety". I wondered why? Do people not rate safety highly enough to sway buying preferences?

Or is this an unwritten rule of airline advertising? Would "We are the safest airline of them all" not sell?

[Hotel Tango]

Well I'm not in the advertising business but my guess is that if you were to sell SAFETY and then have a relatively small incident (or worse incidents)blown up out of all proportion by the press (who would immediately focus on your SAFETY ads of course), your campaign would soon crash (pardon the pun)! Additionally, if you were to focus on safety it might be perceived as meaning that flying is inherently unsafe - not the best way of attracting punters. Best focus on the finer products and advantages offered by your airline.

[The SSK]

It is an unwritten rule, always has been.

Way back, late 60s-ish, Iberia had a campaign which was symbolised by a spanner with a red rose wrapped around it, the slogan was 'where only the plane gets more attention than you'. They got a lot of industry flak over that, for stepping out of line.

[ross_M]

if you were to sell SAFETY and then have a relatively small incident (or worse incidents)blown up out of all proportion by the press (who would immediately focus on your SAFETY ads of course), your campaign would soon crash (pardon the pun)!

You could be right. But a counter-example is the automobile industry. Auto companies constantly highlight their own superior crash ratings and it's a major selling point.

Arguably, incidents in the auto industry tend to be less catastrophic than the airlines.

[Gulfstreamaviator]

KLM ran an ad some years ago, that pushed SAFETY and nothing else....

More die every day in cars than every year in aircraft.

RAK Airways here in UAE ran the AD " WE FLY YOU", basic but to the point.