This brand has always fascinated us because it has the best of what we call “brand equity markers” in the market. Disney, for example, is one of the best brands when it comes to brand equity markers, leveraging markers such as the Mickey Mouse ears or Cinderella’s castle. If you just see an outline of the mouse ears, you instantly recall Disney and the feeling it gives you.
United, meanwhile, has one of the most recognizable and long-lasting logos in the market, and it also has the wonderful strains of George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” which feels global and warm and sophisticated - like important people coming home for Christmas. You can see yourself in that brand. The use of Gershwin is simply one of the best uses of brand music ever. (When pared with a Gene Hackman voiceover, it is brand recall nirvana.)
United Airlines
It has also has a distinctive look in its print advertising, something sophisticated and unlike anyone else in the market.
There has always been something aspirational in United and its current “It’s time to fly” positioning partly reflects that. The positioning is about making dreams come true and giving us as passengers the permission to dream.
In recent years, United has unfortunately tip-toed away from the “Fly the Friendly Skies” positioning, although it has kept the Gershwin music. United uses it more subtly, but it still lacks that “big” punch the old spots used to have.
The new spots have taken the animation approach to the same brand promise: That you can fulfill dreams with United.
United Airlines "Dragon"
In most respects, we’d give United a strong grade relative to the market for their branding. But most of its brand emotion is left over from the long-standing equity markers and a relative consistency in delivery of the brand. The animation approach is an attempt to update their brand.
United held steady in RPKs for early 2008 and its 2007 net income of $403 million was its first full-year profit since 2000. (You can credit cutting costs for that, although the rising fuel costs hit United harder than most.)
From a brand perspective, however, United’s lack of increased market share might be a signal of danger to come. (But United also may have the most opportunity.) United may have the most instantly recognizable and emotional brand in the market, but the essence of it - big, metropolitan, being a part of the global world - feels flat to us in the animation approach. Although sophisticated, it feels a little too cute. United is a lot of powerful things. But it is not cute.
