'Suckers! I'm
flying on the cheap'
How does a budget ticket broker tout its low-cost fares?
By Toni Fitzgerald
Mar 4, 2010
You're at the airport waiting in line at the gate to get on your plane, when you notice a man standing nearby wearing a T-shirt with a very provocative slogan.
It has nothing to do with sex, drugs or rock 'n roll, but it's guaranteed to get your blood boiling.
The shirt is bright purple. In white and light purple letters, it says, "Suckers! I'm flying to Madrid for 49 euros." Below the words is a logo with the name "BudgetAir.nl."
Looking around the gate, you notice another person with a purple T-shirt and the BudgetAir logo. This one says, "Haha! I'm flying to London for 35 euros."
All told, there are 10 such T-shirts at the airport, all part of an alternative media stunt by the Dutch budget online ticket broker.
The campaign came about this way. The company wanted to make the case to travelers that it was the cheapest plane ticket broker in the Netherlands. Its agency came up with the idea for the T-shirts. What better way to say it than to shout it?
"We knew from our own experience how frustrating it can be to sit on a plane and the guy next to you tells you he paid much less" for his ticket, says Hugo Rütter, who worked on the campaign for New Message Amsterdam.
It wasn't a hard stunt to coordinate. The agency sent 10 travelers to the Amsterdam international airport one day in December.
The agency booked two travelers apiece on flights to London, Barcelona and Madrid, and had them fly back on the same day.
"We picked out flights that are known for fluctuating ticket prices," Rütter says. "And of course we hung around at the airport as long as possible to get maximum exposure."
The travelers also affixed bumper stickers with the same messages to their luggage, which they pulled around the airports behind them.
Most, though not all, of their fellow flyers got the joke.
"We got mostly smiles, but some travelers were a bit grumpy about it, as you would expect from Dutch people," jokes Rütter.
The stunt worked because it was direct but also cheeky. It's one thing for a company to insist it has the best prices. It's another for that company to actually put a number out there, and to do so in a manner that demands attention.
Plus, nobody could miss those bright purple shirts, which were chosen because purple is BudgetAir.nl’s house color.
Rütter says it's impossible to tell if the stunt caused a spike in BudgetAir.nl sales, because the company had a number of media campaigns running simultaneously. But the advertiser was pleased with the results.
"We got good nationwide press, which made the stunt super-efficient instantly as it obviously was not a high-budget campaign," Rütter says.
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