Ad Review
Southwest Airlines abandons marketing, goodwill, and unique selling proposition
After I thought more about Warby Parker abandoning a unique part of its business, I thought of Southwest Airlines.
Southwest Airlines abandoned its key differentiator of free checked bags. At the same time, they abandoned the idea of choosing your seat after boarding and their unique check-in system. Southwest Airlines is now choosing to be like every other airline: charge more for less with no unique ideas.
Stunningly, this decision also forced Southwest to abandon millions of dollars spent on marketing campaigns advertising free checked bags. Years spent building customer expectations are now gone. Now they must pour more money into tone deaf ads explaining how they are like everybody else now
Amazon Prime Day 2025
The ad is terrible.
Why is LeBron James involved? Why is he doing new hobbies? Why do I have to choose which hobby he is doing in order to make the ad time go faster? Why is a hibachi restaurant with strangers showing up? Why? It wasn’t clever, just annoying.
Over-saturation = burnout.
And most of all, when the run ad runs it breaks streaming platforms: the audio goes out and a manual restart of the main content is needed. Especially Pluto TV and Paramount.
Simply: I had items in my shopping cart but I didn’t check out.
Turtle Wax
Great ad that shows Turtle Wax understands their target audience. Exploits the deep feelings of those passionate about their cars. Humorous, good feels, and the right amount of edge mixed with odd to make me remember.
A clever idea that makes me want to use their products.