Perhaps I'm still resentful about a Kafkaesque weekend a few years ago, spent trying and nearly failing to get from Chicago to Savannah, Ga. on Delta Air Lines. But listening to these new Delta ads is like shaving my head with a cheese grater.
First of all, the announcer sounds a lot like the guy on Garrison Keillor's Ketchup Advisory Council ads.
Seriously. Check it out.
But it's not the style of these ads that hurts me—the videography is stunning—it's the condescending copywriting.
An airline has planes, and people.
And the planes can seem pretty much the same.
So it comes down to the people.
And whether they're working to make flying better, or ... just working.
Because bad weather, congestion, the price of oil—those are every airline's reality.
And the solutions aren't going to come from 500 tons of metal ...
They're going to come from people.
People who know how to put themselves on the other side of the counter.
People who love this industry because of its challenges, not despite them.
Delta people, who made us the biggest airline in the world, and then decided ... that wasn't enough.
Now, have you ever heard a bigger line of hooey than that? I haven't. Airline employees, who go to work looking eagerly forward to the "challenges" of the daily airline grind, and who's hunger for corporate growth just can't be sated? I'm sorry, but I'm gonna need to see more proof than some sexy shots of boots on a tarmac.
But that doesn't mean it's a bad ad, right? Cuz maybe it'll impress some lesser viewers, right?
As Larry Ragan wrote, if you're a communicator who thinks your tastes are more refined than those of your readers, you're in more trouble than you know.
I don't buy it, Delta. And I don't think anybody else does, either. We weren't born yesterday. Yesterday, we were dealing with your truculent gate agent, at O'Hare.
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