• by Barbara Lippert , Columnist, September 3, 2024

These British Airways OOH ads give us a clever peek-a-boo image -- a vertical slice -- of the exclusivity and comfort offered in Business Class.

The genius is in the abundant use of white space, which heightens the sense of Zen luxury, and voyeurism, that using only a sliver of the billboard conveys.

At first the image seems fluid and Japanese-y enough to be a watercolor painting. But each shows a different, slightly abstracted photo of a traveler (by photographer Cristopher Anderson) in a private moment in his or her immense seat, a corner of the world with better booze and rarified air.

Of course, we know the drill: customers getting served wine and cheese, heated nuts, and an array of entertainment products while being genuinely attended to.

And that makes the non-Business Class schlubs go nuts with envy as they trudge through with their rollie bags in search of their own tragically tiny and unattended seats in the back, where they’ll need to pack their knees into their rib cages and arm wrestle for the arm rest.

The campaign ran only in England, in August, and will be followed in the fall with print.

But wait, do I sound bitter?

Perhaps Americans, with our rebellious spirits and ideas about “fairness,” are more sensitive to these airborne class distinctions and ads promoting them.

But the work, titled “Doors,” comes on the heels of the airline’s wider, award-winning  “A British Original” platform, also crafted by Uncommon Creative Studio. 

To de-snobbify the joint a bit, in this campaign, there are a few economical lines of unexpected, whimsical copy (with a British comic edge) placed to the side of each sliver of an image.

For example, to match the shot of a traveler elevating his (shoed) tootsies on a footrest, the accompanying copy reads “Eight hours in the company of your favourite person.”  I’m not sure what that has to do with shoes, but it’s like an airy haiku.

Another shows a female passenger glowing and smiling, enjoying the ambrosia in the wine glass that she’s holding.

 “Best when left to breathe” the copy reads. “The same goes for the wine.”

To tweak the image of a uniformed steward offering a twinkly, on-the-rocks, honey-colored drink, the copy gets personal:

“Greg is fluent in Spanish, French, and Scottish single malts.”

“Doors” comes on the heels of “Windows,” a previous OOH, UK-centric BA campaign that won Outdoor Gold this June at the Cannes Lions Festival. 

Without a line of copy or a logo, it featured giant, deconstructed photo panels focused on the rows of windows on the side of the airlines and the letters of the logo below them. the outdoor boards were placed in dueling spaces across the road from each other. cannily placed, so you’d see, say,  BRIT on one side of the road and ishAIR on the other, a puzzle that your mind puts together.

The outward looking human heads behind the windows reversed the familiar angle-- that passengers  take photos from their window seats. Instead, viewers on the ground could see the passengers’ emotions and excitement as they look out on their destinations. Some of the iterations featured animated heads in the windows, which made the experience even more cranium-spinning.

The line-up of heads also included an adorable baby, whose infanthood and  life growth (I’m trying not to use the word “journey” )was featured in a sweet and hopeful BA TV spot earlier this year.

Another great outdoor campaign focused on amusing “Out of Office” memos.

British Airways is no doubt doing intriguing creative that is smart, funny and different for the category. That’s difficult these days, with air rage being the rage.

And obviously, Club Class, or Business Class as it’s called in these ads, is the revenue generator.