GOL Airlines, the Brazilian low cost carrier, has taken to YouTube and shopping mall elevators to mount an advertising campaign to remake its image after labor problems last month.
The advertising blitz, under the slogan "You can always go further," appears on free and paid TV channels, YouTube, the Web, 3D movie theaters, Elemidia [TV screens in elevators at shopping malls and universities], magazines and billboards.
Update: GOL says the campaign had been in the works for awhile, and wasn't created to address any labor issues.
The campaign was launched in home-market Brazil, where GOL was the second-leading airline with a 40.69% marketshare in the first half of 2010, according to PhoCusWright's Latin America: Navigating the Emerging Online Travel Marketplace. TAM's #1 marketshare in the country was 42.2%.
The advertising campaign also was slated to be launched in Argentina, GOL's largest foreign market.
Here's the YouTube video:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxaVISl3WiQ
A rough translation of the narrative is: “Everyone is driven by imagination. And imagination is what fuels us so you can fly better every day.”
Florence Scappini, GOL's advertising manager, states: "Now more than ever, the company is geared toward its customers' needs. This is what we want to show through the campaign: that GOL is drawing closer to its clients, in addition to being an intelligent, straightforward and pioneering airline."
One backdrop to the campaign is the airline's labor woes and a rash of flight cancellations and delays.
GOL says it experienced delays in its route network in early August "due to a change in the configuration of the system for processing pilot and flight attendant rosters, leading to some crew members reaching their flying-hour limit during the last weekend."
These difficulties took place as competition in the Brazilian domestic airline market really heats up, with Azul, Webjet and Trip grabbing market share so far in 2010, says Patricia Rasore, PhoCusWright's director Latin America.
“Though extremely competitive, with TAM, GOL, Azul, Webjet , Tripand Avianca (ex-OceanAir) all competing for business, the Brazilian domestic market is growing extremely quickly, with some seeing year over year growth as high as 25% this year,” Rasore says. “Not only expansion, companies have also become more competent at a national and regional level.”
GOL's domestic marketshare has been stable over the last year as the Brazilian domestic market and international markets take off.
For the first six months of 2010, the domestic airline market in Brazil grew an "astounding" 28%, Rasore says, while the international market increased 13%.
Market growth was fed by airline deregulation, economic growth in Brazail outpacing global economic growth, and online adoption, Rasore adds.
Thus, with GOL feeling the pressure on a variety of fronts in this hyper-competitive airline environment, the carrier obviously hopes that YouTube videos and elevator pitches will enable it to, as its new advertising slogan says, "go further."