Flying high on celebrity endorsements: Jennifer Aniston stars in new ad for Emirates

Aviation giant Emirates has released their first advert starring American sweetheart Jennifer Aniston and surprise, surprise, it has already gone viral.

Gathering more than 790,000 views on YouTube in the first 24 hours, the light-hearted, one-minute commercial uses humor to showcase the luxury of the Gulf airline.

The ad shows the Friends star clad in a bathrobe frantically looking for the on-board shower and lounge, loofah and toiletries in hand, on an unspecified U.S. airline.

When she asks a group of flight attendants for help, they tell her there is no shower.

“Well, I’m going to look pretty silly dressed like this going to the bar,” says Aniston.

They respond saying there is no shower and no bar, and offer her hot towels and some nuts in consolation. “This isn’t an Emirates plane, ma’am,” they say, scoffing and mocking her.

Luckily for the 46-year-old star, she wakes up to the luxurious surroundings of her own private suite in the Emirates First Class cabin, realising the whole episode was just a “nightmare.” Freshly showered, she is next seen tucking into a drink and snack in the flight’s onboard lounge, telling a sympathetic bartender about her dream.

“It was such a nightmare, I was on the plane and it was nothing like this,” she says. “Hey, is there someone we could talk to about maybe flying this around a little bit longer? Like maybe an hour?”

The ad’s slogan is, “Wake up to flying as it should be.”

“In a departure from the usual airline industry ads, we chose to take a humorous approach to showcase the amazing products we offer on board,” Boutros Boutros, Emirates’ divisional senior vice president for marketing and brand. “We couldn’t think of anyone better suited for the role than Jennifer Aniston and we wrote the script with her in mind. Her professionalism and comedic talent shone on the set and we are very pleased with the outcome.”

High flying with power celebrities

While the ad does come amid tense relations between Gulf and American carriers, Emirates’ ad does continue the recent trend of aviation brands, particularly from the Middle East, recruiting high-profile celebrities as brand ambassadors.

In March, Emirates’ rival Etihad recruited Australian actress Nicole Kidman as its brand ambassador, bringing her refined nature and innate elegance to showcase the Abu Dhabi airline’s new Airbus A380.

Having endorsed high-end products such as Chanel and Omega in the past, it comes as no surprise that the Etihad chose her to be the face of their global advertising campaign, showcasing the airline’s spacious three-room The Residence – the only private living space of its kind in commercial aviation.

“Nicole Kidman, as a globally respected artist, was the perfect voice and face for our story, and embodies worldly sophistication, intelligence, originality, and elegance – values which form the foundations of the Etihad brand,” said Peter Baumgartner, Etihad Airways’ chief commercial officer.

In just six months, Emirates signed Aniston in a $5 million global brand endorsement deal and announced it will be spending approximately $20 million to run advertisements featuring the beloved actress.

For Emirates, tapping into Aniston’s girl-next-door charm and heart-warming, down-to-earth nature was key to a successful campaign, not just to trigger the “Jennifer Aniston neuron,” but allow her natural appeal to shine through and connect with a global audience, making luxurious aviation amenities seem within reach.

“You have to get Aniston to interact,” Madeleine Butcher, a Dubai-based consultant creative who worked for Saatchi & Saatchi and TBWA, told The National when Aniston was first announced as Emirates’ brand ambassador. “If the campaign is just a picture of her sitting in business class looking relaxed, you are making a very approachable person into an unapproachable subject – and that doesn’t help anybody.”

Needless to say, the first, much-anticipated ad in the campaign worked.

“Jennifer Aniston’s appeal and effortless connection with a global audience makes her the perfect choice for our campaign. As one of the busiest women in Hollywood, Aniston, like many of our customers, enjoys downtime only when she is travelling. At Emirates, we ensure the experience is an exceptional one.”

Turkish airlines’ has also produced several humorous ads featuring power celebrities including basketball star Kobe Bryant and football icons Lionel Messi and Didier Drogba to promote their “Widen your world” campaign and compete with the region’s big three – Emirates Airline, Etihad Airways and Qatar Airways.

Their 2013 commercial, named the advert of the decade by YouTube, shows Bryant and Messi battling for the best selfie in locations across the globe.

The popular ad was a sequel to the airlines’ “Kobe vs. Messi: Legends on Board” commercial, the first in the series that became one of the most-viewed commercials in YouTube’s history.

Cristiano Ronaldo and Pele have also starred for Emirates while Barcelona stars have starred for Qatar Airways.

MidEast carriers’ quick rise in the aviation world

The rise of Middle Eastern carriers in recent years has been driven by the airlines’ competitive ambitions to establish international travel hubs, expand their networks, purchase bigger planes such as the Airbus A380 and implement significant investments to cater to the region’s growing luxury market and growing influence in the travel sector.

Redefining the industry, these airlines have risen and maintained themselves at the top of global customer-satisfaction rankings by investing in new, larger plans, offering luxurious international service and expanding their reach to new cities while launching huge advertising campaigns designed to win the hearts and minds of its customers.

Although shelling out sizeable sums on “airline ambassadors” and celebrity endorsements is no new trend in the marketing world, brand owners do hope to see large returns on their investments, considering the viral potential of successful digital ads and marketing campaigns.

“It isn’t just a thinly veiled barb at US airlines, it depicts a real-world situation,” said Saj Ahmad, chief analyst at StrategicAero Research. “For too long, customers have paid a lot of money and had poor value in return. The expansion of Emirates, particularly in the United States, has changed the game and the reality is that US airlines are simply ill-equipped to compete.”

Recruiting airline ambassadors whose values align with a brand obviously involves a measured, calculated process, a significantly funded deal and a catchy advertising campaign with viral potential.

For Emirates, Aniston’s personal brand and new ad already seems to be a smart, savvy decision that cuts across all markets.

Comments

comments