British Airways’ ‘A British Original’: The anatomy of a campaign

Sookio Bootcamp 2023 graduate Claire Webber analyses the effectiveness of British Airways’ ‘A British Original’ campaign, which represented a new marketing approach for the iconic brand.

Quirky, tongue-in-cheek and playful are not traits that you would immediately associate with the global premium airline British Airways (BA). However, their recent campaign - a ground-breaking collaboration with London branding agency Uncommon Creative - has certainly brought out their fun side. 

Titled ‘A British Original’, has this fresh approach propelled the airline further upwards towards soaring profits, or did they suffer a nosedive? Let’s take a look. 

Preparing for take-off: How British Airways became an iconic brand 

Hailed as a stalwart of British industry, BA have topped the Superbrands Index an impressive four times, and are renowned for celebrating their heritage and championing being British. Over the past four decades this theme has remained consistent, with BA’s marketing endeavours seeking to appeal to our strong sense of patriotism. 

Who can forget the iconic 1989 television advert ‘The Face’, widely recognised as one of the greatest ads of all time due to the sheer magnitude of production. Created by the geniuses at Saatchi & Saatchi with a budget of over £1 million, making it one of the most expensive ads in history, a cast of thousands wearing red, white and blue, cleverly merge together to form a huge smiling face filmed from above in the Utah desert. 

Accompanied by the rousing swells of ‘Flower Duet’ from Delibes’ opera ‘Lakme’, a piece that has been used throughout future advertising and as the airline’s boarding music, it was a breath-taking visual representation of how the ‘World’s Favourite Airline’ was bringing over 24 million of us together each year.  

Definitely not quirky, tongue-in-cheek or playful. 

Fast forward to more recent times, and as part of the brand’s 100th anniversary celebrations the celeb-packed campaign ‘Made in Britain’ was created in 2019 under the direction of ad agency Ogilvy. It was another tug on the heartstrings of our British identity, designed to make us proud.

The television advert at the heart of the campaign showcased an array of famous faces from the world of acting and music along with sporting heroes, including a posthumous appearance by dearly loved Brit icon David Bowie, each telling us what they love about Britain. Arguably all were overshadowed by the true British classic Winnie the Pooh, who of course spoke of his love of honey. 

BA’s head of marketing, Hamish McVey, explained that through the television ad called ‘Love Letter To Britain’ they wanted to ‘make it clear the values the brand stands for and how they align with the values of Britain’. 

Then along came the pandemic in 2020, and, like all other airlines, BA was grounded and profits took a monumental hit. Ironically, lockdown was a time which pushed us physically far apart whilst at the same time bringing us all closer together in spirit. The nation acknowledged renewed respect for the key workers that had sustained us throughout, a concept that BA chose to capitalise on with the release of their first ad since business was halted.

Released in 2021, ‘You Make Us Fly’ featured the airline’s own people, all of whom volunteered to star in the advert, proudly making their way back to work with a very British sense of urgency to do what they love most - care for their valued customers. They even brought back the majestic ‘Flower Duet’ soundtrack from the ‘The Face’. 

Mid-flight: A new daring and unique campaign 

Now, working with Uncommon Creative who seek to create ‘brands that people in the real world are glad exist’ British Airways go a step further by making us the focus. The everyday people.  

Primarily executed in copy, the month-long campaign, ‘A British Original’, launched in October 2022 across TV, cinema, video on demand, social and print, including billboards at iconic sites such as Piccadilly Lights and Heathrow.  

Playing on the form that passengers are often asked to complete when they land in a new destination, with the two standard choices of ‘Business’ and ‘Leisure’ listed, the third option is where the magic happens. Uncommon have created 500 unique print, digital and outdoor executions, plus 32 different short films, with each possible answer being highly relatable, reflecting the uniqueness of people as individuals.  

Timed perfectly to capitalise on the post-pandemic holiday boom, it reminds us of the myriad of reasons why we choose to travel, ranging from fun and celebratory, ‘Because this weather sucks’, to necessary and moving, ‘Marriage CPR’. 

Head of marketing for BA, Hamish McVey, says “We really wanted this campaign to celebrate the originality of our customers and our people. Every time a customer boards a plane, they are doing so for a unique reason, and we know that those journeys are so important. We are working hard on making positive changes across our airline and this brand campaign allows us to showcase our motivation, which is our customers and our people.” 

With each billboard being a one-off featuring a plain and simple stripped back design, Uncommon went a step further with their creative process by using carefully chosen placements to underline the sentiments being expressed in the copy. For example, one poster in a London Underground station lists ‘Warm gusts of wind that don’t come from tube trains’ as the reason for travel. Adaptive billboards were also part of the roll-out, meaning that the reason ‘It’s 16.37 and it’s dark’ could be adjusted to reflect the shortening days of winter. 

The TV campaign launched during peak time across ITV, Channel 4 and Sky with both static shots top and tailing ad breaks, and the short films. One of the static shots shows a British Airways cabin crew member peering out of the window, followed by his motivation for doing what he loves - ‘The office view’. Similarly, one of the short films focuses on a genuine British Airways pilot gently rocking his daughter to sleep before heading off to work, with his reason being ‘For her’. 

Preparing to land: Did the campaign strategy meet its objectives? 

Customer feedback has been excellent. Any posts on BA’s social media platforms will always receive a slew of comments from desperate travellers wanting to rectify issues and chase refunds, but comments about the campaign specifically have been positive. 

‘A British Original’ has also won several industry awards for Uncommon Creative, including their first gold at the Grand Prix in the Outdoor Category at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. It also appears that their successful collaboration with BA has been cemented, as they have since worked on new executions that freshen up the campaign by playing around more with the art direction. These include an ad written in crayon, one with the copy stamped on French cheese and one with words printed on a sweater.

The test of any campaign however boils down to profit…the news is good.

Despite the aviation industry now facing added threats arising from the cost of living crises and the spotlight increasingly on green issues such as reducing our carbon footprint, BA have announced record profits for the first half of 2023, saying that they expect to recover to pre-pandemic levels by the end of the year.  

The ‘quirky, tongue-in cheek and playful’ gamble has paid off, and by trusting in the expertise of an agency who dared to try something different, via an incredibly well-thought out and innovative marketing strategy which perfectly captured the attention of the audience, British Airways have executed a flawless landing. 

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This piece was written by one of the students on 2023’s Sookio Bootcamp, a week of remote work experience for aspiring marketers. Take a look at last year’s brilliant posts on campaigns from Duolingo and Nike.