Inspiring Spirit
Scoot
Issue 37 | December 2015
Agency
Saatchi & Saatchi Singapore
Creative Team
Executive Creative Director Dominic Stallard Art Director Chris Soh Copywriters Stephanie Gwee, Andrea Cid, Jennie Morris, Ben Wight
Production Team
Chief Operations Director Esther Yue Project Manager Terry Ong Production Company Calibre Pics, One Moviola, Emoxis, Fuse Adventures in Audio
Other Credits
Account Director Stella Pok General Manager Celevel Butler Head of Planning Steve Walls Account Director (SweeneyVesty) Tom Judd Senior Consultant (SweeneyVesty) Sarah Tan Head of Digital (Publicis) Kelvin Koo Account Director (Publicis) Jess Seow Account Manager (Publicis) Goh Siying Lead Community Manager (Publicis) Vanessa Tay
Date
April 2015
Background
Scoot had discovered that another budget airline had adopted very similar branding and advertising to theirs, from the font, the colours, to the tone of voice and even to the illustrations used in Scoot ads. The similarities were very apparent. But rather than sue Spirit Airlines for 'passing off', which was not in line with Scoot's irreverent brand personality, they decided to launch a campaign to have some fun, leveraging social media and PR to achieve brand awareness.
Idea
In a tongue-in-cheek online video, Scoot's CEO informed Spirit Airlines that if they wanted to duplicate his brand, they should at least do it well. This was followed up with a direct mail kit with everything Spirit Airlines needed to properly recreate Scoot's brand personality. This included a step-by-step guide on how to create the ads as well as Scoot's full corporate identity guidelines. It included a kit to help Spirit make their very own Marketer of the Year trophy, like the one Scoot won in 2014.
As the campaign gained momentum, Scoot flew a giant blimp over Spirit's headquarters in Florida. They even named a new Boeing 787 Dreamliner "Inspiring Spirit".
Results
Over 100 media outlets covered the campaign globally. To date, the campaign has generated $41m of earned media thanks to extensive coverage on CNN, Bloomberg, Channel News Asia and USA Today. The number of people searching for Scoot on Google increased by 32% during the campaign period. Spirit employees even rallied for Scoot online
Our Thoughts
Historically, brand owners have not been noted for their sense of humour.
Holland’s Café in Essex were accused by Harrods of ‘copyright infringement’.
Chanel sued an online retailer for making a smartphone cover that looked too much like a bottle of No.5 for their liking.
Coca-Cola used to get in a tizz anytime someone used their font. And so on and so on.
So it is heartening to see Scoot take the mickey out of Spirit for sharing their enthusiasm for the colour yellow.
The word ‘brand’ is simply a synonym for ‘personality’ and Scoot have demonstrated in this campaign that they have bags of the stuff. In a world of over-supply, I’d rather fly with an airline that has a smile rather than one that doesn’t.
Matt agreed. “Fun, competitive,” he said of this work.