If there’s one thing I have to give British Airways credit for (other than how many business class seats they can squeeze into little spaces), it’s their marketing videos.
For example, British Airways’ 2013 “Visit Mum” campaign made me cry (and if it doesn’t make you cry, you may not have a soul). It’s a brilliant abstract ad that doesn’t directly encourage you to fly British Airways, but rather tells a story that will hopefully resonate with people, and make them associate visiting family with British Airways.
In 2016 they had another ad targeting the Indian market, which was also great, but just couldn’t really compete with the 2013 ad, in my opinion.
However, lately British Airways has been doing an ad campaign where people write in sharing a trip they’d like to take for a special reason, and British Airways (sometimes) makes it happen.
For example, in August they helped a man propose on a London to Larnaca flight.
Today British Airways shared their latest story where they helped someone with a special trip, and I really love this. Here’s how British Airways describes it:
British Airways has worked its magic with a whirlwind 24-hour adventure in Hong Kong for deserving customer, and Skype aunt, Sarah Macfarlane.
London-based Sarah wrote to the airline to ask for help to fulfil her wish to see her nephew, Brodie, in his big break into showbiz: a starring role in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert… 6,000 miles away in Hong Kong. Sarah’s nephews and niece have lived in Hong Kong all their lives, so Sarah has missed out on many school plays, football matches and milestone family moments. Sarah vowed that she would get to Hong Kong to watch Priscilla but, with work piling up, she explained she only had a single day to get there and back.
Despite having no previous acting experience, nine year old Brodie has been cast in the role of Benji in the Tony Award-winning musical. British Airways stepped in to help this ‘aunt on a mission’, with a few surprises thrown in along the way.
Met by fabulous costume characters from the show at Heathrow Terminal 5 and Hong Kong airport, Sarah took to the skies in an A380 to surprise Brodie in a trail of glitter and feather boas, and armed with her very own bespoke High Life inflight magazine with Brodie as the cover star.
After watching Brodie shine on stage, Sarah gave him the surprise of his life in his dressing room and declared that their reunion hug was “worth traveling all the way around the world for”. The pair were then surprised with a helicopter trip over Hong Kong to make the most of their family time before Sarah had to head back to the airport.
Here’s the video:
While not quite as emotional as British Airways’ India ad, I thought this was both touching and cute. When you boil it down, the beauty of airlines is the ability to easily connect people who are thousands of miles apart, and nothing quite drives that point home like this.
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