oneworld launches US$35 million global advertising campaign

The oneworld™ airline alliance is to launch its biggest yet integrated global marketing communications campaign - with US$35 million budgeted for print, poster and on-line advertising, brochures and a whole range of other materials.

It builds on the "alliance that revolves around you" theme of its the award-winning September 1999 launch advertising.

Peter Buecking, who took up his position as oneworld Managing Partner at the beginning of this month, said: "Our research shows that oneworld's initial campaign played a key role in helping build awareness levels for the alliance higher overall than those for any of our rivals in virtually all of our key geographical areas, despite our later entry to market and far smaller promotional spend. The key aim behind our new campaign is to build further on those firm foundations."

The new campaign will also mark the entry of the latest two members of the alliance - with Ireland's Aer Lingus and the leading Latin American carrier LanChile soon joining the established American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Finnair, Iberia and Qantas.

The campaign has been created for oneworld by agencies Temerlin McClain and M&C Saatchi, Claydon Heeley and agency.com. It will run in key business magazines and newspapers progressively from today until the end of this year, in almost 200 publications covering scores of countries, on hundreds of poster sites from June, and on dozens of websites on-line, using some 15 different languages.

The execution follows the theme set by the initial, highly successful campaign, using strong black-and-white photographs of people in business travel settings, with their arms around the blue oneworld globe logo. The shots were taken by David Bryant, the leading Los Angeles-based portrait photographer.

Four variations will be used, focussing on the different customer services offered by the alliance, in particular its frequent flyer benefits, its greater network of airport lounges, and the higher levels of support travellers are able to receive. The overall message is that oneworld customers can travel with calm and confidence in a world which can otherwise be hectic and chaotic.

Notes to editors

oneworld enables each carrier to offer customers services and products that it cannot provide by itself, responding to changes in the global airline marketplace. These include:

• Closer linking of the member airlines' frequent flyer programmes, enabling members of the frequent flyer programmes to earn and redeem miles on any eligible flights and fares on any of the oneworld alliance airlines. Qualifying flights also count towards frequent flyer tier status. (American Airlines AADVANTAGE and British Airways Executive Club members can earn and redeem miles and earn tier status credit on all eligible flights except each other's direct routes between Europe and the Americas).
• Access to the member airlines' 250 plus lounges for eligible members of their frequent flyer schemes, no matter which oneworld airline they are flying, along with priority check-in, standby and waitlisting, and preferred seating and boarding
• smoother transfers for passengers connecting between oneworld carriers
• greater support, with employees of each airline equipped to assist and care for customers travelling with any of the oneworld airlines
• greater value, through a range of round-the-world products, including oneworld Explorer fares.
• Top tier frequent flyer cards with a common element of branding, to ensure members receive the appropriate recognition and privileges to which they are accustomed no matter on which of the airlines they are flying.
  
  Aer Lingus and LanChile will take the number of destinations served by oneworld members to 585 destinations worldwide. With the new additions, oneworld carriers will employ 266,938 people and operate fleets of 1,826 aircraft.
  
  In oneworld's first year of operation, its member airlines:
• Carried 200 million passengers - equivalent to one in 30 of the world population.
• Flew 2.2 billion miles (3.5 billion kms) - equivalent to 12 return trips to the Sun.
• Operated around two million flights - with a oneworld airline departure somewhere around the world every 14 seconds.
  
  Its September 1999 launch advertising was named "best international campaign" by the leading advertising industry magazine Media Week in its 1999 awards.
  
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