Worst Airline Ad Campaign Ever: Spirit Airlines MILF
So, this email subject line got my attention: "Return of the MILF - Fares From $9* Each Way". I looked a little deeper, and found the related ad:
Huh. At first I wondered if these guys had any idea what the acronym meant....and then learned they did. Spirit Air ran this same campaign ("many islands, low fares") in 2007, and experienced a "backlash" online. However, clearly, the "negative PR" must've been a great source of traffic and awareness for the company, because they're doing a repeat and milking it. (And hey, I'm writing about it, so it's apparently working...)
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Comments
A $9 flight! You'd think that would be PR enough! But hey, yeah, I imagine they would want to milk the milf scandal-campaign. It's PR, as you say. And $9 is $9 in anyone's book.
Posted by: Tara | January 9, 2009 02:06 PM
Totally awesome. Interesting that "repeating" the marketing campaign might end up bringing up a different form of negative publicity; instead of ignorance, blatant pandering, perhaps?
Posted by: Taylor Davidson | January 9, 2009 08:51 PM
Yeah, it's possible. But even then, if such publicity leads to traffic clicking through to their site, an increase in brand awareness, and an increase in ticket sales, it may even _still_ benefit them in the long run. It'd be interesting to see what their traffic trend looks like over the last two years... I might have to look in Alexa.
Posted by: GarageSpin | January 9, 2009 11:32 PM