Southwest Broadens Approach in New Campaign

Southwest Airlines, for the first time in many years, is making major changes in how it presents itself to current and potential customers.

In an initiative that is scheduled to begin on Tuesday, Southwest is replacing its longtime humorous approach, as typified by ads with themes like “You are now free to move about the country,” with a smoother, more polished tack that is intended to help burnish the Southwest brand image by playing up the airline’s status as the biggest domestic carrier.

The new effort, which carries the theme “Welcome aboard,” is also the first work for the airline from TBWA/Chiat/Day Los Angeles, which Southwest added to its roster of advertising agencies in July. The funny ads for Southwest have been created by GSD&M, an agency in Austin, Tex., that continues to work for the company on other assignments.

Fun is, however, not entirely absent from the new initiative, which uses the song “Some Nights” by the popular rock band Fun. on the soundtrack of the first commercial.

In the first commercial of the campaign, Southwest is likened to entrepreneurs and mavericks who, according to an announcer, “find their own path, chart their own course” and “never stop moving forward and never, ever back down.”

Such people “believe the American dream doesn’t just happen; it’s something you have to work for,” the announcer proclaims, adding that at Southwest, “we never stop looking for a better way.”

“It’s how we’ve grown into America’s largest domestic airline,” the commercial concludes. “We are Southwest. Welcome aboard.”

If the commercial is somewhat evocative of a well-known television commercial for Apple from 1997 called “Here’s to the Crazy Ones,” that may be no coincidence. The TBWA Media Arts Lab division of TBWA/Chiat/Day creates campaigns for Apple.

The new approach for Southwest is not without risk in that it leaves behind the airline’s usual jokey pitches for a tack that may seem to many consumers more appropriate for a carrier with a buttoned-down, corporate image than one with humorous on-board safety announcements.

“People enjoy the humor on board, and that we don’t want to change,” Bob Jordan, executive vice president and chief commercial officer at Southwest, said in a phone interview on Monday.

But when it comes to the humorous ads, “our advertising in the past, while it’s been effective, has been one-dimensional,” Mr. Jordan said, in that “we’ve been using humor to drive home our points almost exclusively.”

“We haven’t told you enough about the things that make us proud,” he added. “We want to tell people we’re better, we’re innovators, and I don’t think people know or remember how innovative Southwest is.”

Also, the humorous tack, “while it’s very effective, speaks more directly to leisure” travelers, Mr. Jordan said, than to the “combination of leisure and business” travelers Southwest would like to have.

So the new effort is “faster-paced, younger, more energetic,” he added, to convey how “Southwest has really changed in the last five to 10 years” with offerings that include “live TV, video on demand on board, new planes and Wi-Fi.”

“We’re not taking a hard right turn,” Mr. Jordan said, because the ads will continue to “celebrate our customers and our employees.”

But “there is something about putting a more modern face, a fresher look, a fresher style” on the Southwest brand, he added.

Mr. Jordan said he had no doubt that consumers would see the new initiative and recognize that “we’re selling Southwest Airlines” by saying, “We’re like you, we’re innovators, we’re always trying to get better.”

And during the course of the next 18 months, he added, “maybe we’ll push a little further back into the humor” in the subsequent ads, which will be devoted to Southwest trademarks like low fares as well as features like new cabins.

Southwest Airlines spent $156.2 million on advertising last year, according to the Kantar Media division of WPP, less than the $247.8 million spent in 2011, the $198.7 million spent in 2010, the $189.7 million spent in 2009 and the $194.1 million spent in 2008.

The lower amount for 2012 may be because the company was planning to bring out the new advertising this year and spend more on it.

The new advertising is not risky or a gamble, said Carisa Bianchi, president at TBWA/Chiat/Day Los Angeles, because “the spot keeps the values and the persona of Southwest and is very much true to its character.”

But it also presents “a grown-up version of Southwest,” she added, reflecting how “Southwest has grown” as it has “democratized the skies.”

“That’s something their existing customers recognize,” Ms. Bianchi said, but is “new information for the business travelers they’re trying to attract.”

John Norman, chief creative officer at TBWA/Chiat/Day Los Angeles, said the echo of “Here’s to the Crazy Ones” may be derived from research that the agency did on Facebook.

“We looked at the people on Facebook who ‘like’ Southwest,” he said, “and there’s an extremely high correlation to innovators.”

“Upstart companies treat Southwest as their company plane,” he added. “They’re ‘the Crazy Ones’ of today.”

The new effort is not “quirky ha-ha-ha,” Mr. Norman acknowledged, offering instead “a charm and humanity” to consumers “rather than slapstick humor.”

TBWA/Chiat/Day Los Angeles is, formally, the Playa del Rey, Calif., office of TBWA/Chiat/Day, a division of the TBWA Worldwide unit of the Omnicom Group. GSD&M is also owned by Omnicom, as is a third agency with which Southwest works, Dieste.

Southwest also works with two agencies owned by WPP, VML and Wunderman.