Sydney Airport launches teaser ads with fictional medical condition, Pre-Flight Tension
Sydney Airport has launched a million-dollar ad campaign to promote the new food, beverage and retail offering at its international terminal.
It is the first work to come out of Frost since it was appointed to handle the brief.
The campaign has initially launched with tongue-and-cheek unbranded radio, outdoor and online ads. The creative executions, which will run until the middle of June, point to a fictional medical condition called PFT – Pre-Flight Tension.
The second phase of the campaign will then highlight the airport’s new retail precinct, positioned as “the antidote to PFT”.
The strategy was informed from research which showed that one in four travellers experienced significant stress before an overseas trip.
Vince Frost, the agency’s creative director and chairman, said: “Consumers were telling us that they find departing for a holiday abroad really stressful, reaching a crescendo at the airport.”
“This insight was the jumping-off point for the creative campaign, which seeks to first acknowledge this phenomenon, crystalising an emotional scenario that travellers can identify with. This engagement will open them up to further communication about how the new experience offered at Sydney Airport can play a role in alleviating this anxiety and actually become an exciting part of the holiday.”
The teaser ads, created to look similar to government health education campaigns, also features the Ease PFT website address which provides consumers with tips on how to ease pre-flight stress.
The Sydney Airport campaign is targeted at regular travellers aged 20–55 who take at least one overseas holiday per year and who have already booked a trip.
In 2007, Sydney Airport began a $500m upgrade of its international terminal.
Dear MaP and Agency,
I’m fine with the flying itself, it is the gouging one endures with anything Sydney Airport related (parking, food etc) that causes the tension and stress. I thought that insight may have come out in your research.
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the truth is that without the price gouging $500m improvements probably not possible
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I only saw the online campaign and it really annoyed me that Sydney Airport wasn’t revealed as the advertiser – it’s completely anonymous. It’s actually quite clever, but this destroyed it for me.
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very clever idea. I think I actually cause most of my own pre-flight tension. To the whingers above – get a grip – it’s advertising! Coke doesn’t add life and red bull does not really give you wings either…
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Such an insight. It sure has crystallised my engagement! wtf?
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wow.. what a waste of money!! Stick to design Frost, strategy obviously is no strength… “Consumers were telling us that they find departing for a holiday abroad really stressful, reaching a crescendo at the airport.” If the product offering that exists there currently has done nought to offset that stress, how will the addition of more commercial clutter improve it??
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