British Airways at Terminal 5

BBH are executing a pretty good campaign for British Airways at Terminal 5 a the moment, at least in how it’s executed.

They are simply going to the airport everyday, asking questions, taking photos, gathering statistics and then turning that into an ad for the next day, where it can be found in the paper, the digital displays, the website and probably other places as well.

In the Metro, the morning free paper:

In a digital display at a Tube Station:

After all the bad press after the opening of the new terminal at Heathrow, they could have gone with a big branded message, all about how great the BA brand is and moved the communication away from T5, but instead they focused on reality, what is really happening in what will become the prime home for the airline.

It’s not all gone smoothly, with some misleading claims being made, apparently by mistake but if you take a look at some of the forums, they do seem to be reporting that things are generally pretty good. There’s a lot of postive comments, in complete contrast to the posts in the first few weeks of opening.

Back to the ad campaign, the whole thing is pretty impressive given the timelines they are working against to produce the elements and get them approved. Pushing everything out in that time, it’s so easy to make mistakes. I do think, however, that the proof of the campaign will be when they have a terrible day – what will they say then?