Airborne Critters Catch Fliers Attention

Will Jack the Rabbit and Foxy ever get together? Will Flip the Dolphin ever get to Florida? People are asking Frontier Airlines such questions about its talking animals ad campaign, which has proved to be wildly popular with consumers. When the animals that are painted on the tails of Frontier's planes began conversing with each other in TV commercials last year, the airline garnered a 50 percent leap in brand recognition. Now the TV and radio commercials are earning top industry awards.

Frontier Airlines and Ericsson Fina, a division of New York advertising firm Grey Worldwide, won top honors at the New York Festivals and Mobius ad competitions last month. Frontier's TV commercials took six of eight first-place prizes in the transportation category of the Mobius Awards. AirTran Airways won the other two spots. The 33rd annual Mobius awards had more than 5,000 entries from 33 countries this year, but Grey Worldwide walked away with the most awards at the Feb. 6 show in Los Angeles.

The Frontier radio ad "Jack's song" won a New York Festivals silver world medal -- the highest award given in the travel and tourism category. It was produced by New York-based McHale Barone. Other radio spots won finalist certificates. Frontier's ads competed against ads from such companies as British Airways, Hotwire.com and Busch Gardens in Florida, according to New York Festivals marketing director Anne White. There were 3,000 entries in the TV and radio category from 35 countries for the New York Festivals. For nearly 50 years, New York Festivals has overseen six annual contests with entries from 62 countries.

"People are following Jack and Foxy's story line or how Flip is always sent to Chicago; people are engaged in the ads," Frontier Airlines spokesman Joe Hodas said. "We hear from parents that kids get excited when they fly because they want to know which animal they'll get on their plane."

When Frontier employees let people know where they work, the ads are the first thing people mention, he said. People are even calling the airline just to say how much they like the ads. Frontier had no way of anticipating the consumer reaction. Before the ads began last year, fewer than 40 percent of Denver consumers were aware of the Frontier brand. But after Larry the Lynx and his cohorts began chatting it up at Denver International Airport gates, brand recognition jumped to 90 percent among Denver focus groups, Hodas said.

And it's not just because the animals are cute and cuddly, said Graham Button, Grey Worldwide creative director.

"They resonate on a deeper level than that," Button said.
 
When the animals line up at the airport gates and catch up with each other like friends do, it creates a sense of community and bringing people together, which is what the airline industry is about, Button said. The ads also came at a time when smaller, low-cost carriers were making headway against the large commercial airlines by offering cheaper fares and better service, he said.

"People were fed up with flying and being treated like the post office," Button said. "This is a new way of doing airline business."

Several advertising firms from around the country competed for the Frontier business and pitched the airline on employee loyalty and price points. But Grey Worldwide was the only one to identify with the airline's animals on the tails, which have been on the planes since Frontier began operating in 1994.

"The secret to the airline is that every plane has an individual, different animal," Button said. "It shows the airline recognizes the difference between flights and the difference between planes, and therefore it translates into 'the airline recognizes the difference between individual passengers.'

"People are fed up with being treated like cattle," he said.

Getting recognized by his peers dovetails with the satisfaction of the effective campaign, Button said.

"Being judged by your peers for doing well is very gratifying," he said. "It's the hardest thing to do in this businesses, where there is so much clutter and noise, and where everyone has said it all."

He hopes for more awards later this year when many of the biggest advertising contests occur, such as the Clio Awards scheduled for May in Miami.

"The ads have a cult following -- they're not mean, they're not shocking, they're just good," Hodas said.

FMI: www.frontierairlines.com