Supersonic Swan

We deliver October 13, 2008

How many times have we come across this statement, comrades? Countless, huh? Lately, the most remarkable one was sounded by Mr Willie Walsh just before the over-advertised opening of the T5 at LHR. Unsurprisingly, soon after the immense T5-drama took off the very first comment of Mr Walsh was – we will deliver.

Hence, my honest attachment to these words which uninterruptedly attracts me to them and makes me want to say – prove it! Yesterday, while working on a completely different issue, I found out about a motto that drives the management of Athens International Airport. Not more, not less but WE DELIVER!

This time the recipient of the delivery are all airlines operating to and from ATH. The campaign was started only this year so it’s hard to say in which way it affected/may affect the concerned carriers. Generally, the concept is not too bad. Fresh, innovative with plenty of ideas of how to expand your business – that’s how they want to be seen at ATH & that’s rougly what airlines would like the airports to be. However, I’m not so sure about the posters’ layout, especially that hardly legible font. Of course it is eye-catching, although I would not suspect airline management of being so badly superficial as to get themselves caught by these posters.

Anyway, if you don’t fancy the idea of deciphering the posters, the campaign also contains a lenghty spot that doesn’t actually convey any important message. Ok, maybe it does. I had a feeling that after completing such a difficult task as inventing this campaign, all the Greek can do is take some time off and go for holidays. You can find the spot here.

Despite me being a deeply sarcastic animal, it is highly positive that folks at ATH are innovative and try to attract attention in an unusual way. One might say, it’s nothing new (vide: Fraport or Vienna Airports). But I say, there are thousands of airports that don’t even do that much!

And since ATH opened in its new location (Spata) in 2002, the traffic was going up. This year, due to the unfavourable market conditions, the year on year benchmark is in red – it will be interesting to see if an agressive campaign is able to change this pattern. For your watching pleasure a little chart below – feel free to analyse it in your spare time!

I know, there’s not much to analyse. You can e-mail me begging for a more detiled version.