Working in our Advertising/Marketing Department is every bit as exhilarating as you would think: last minute ad requests, brief writing, tight timelines, budget realities, working with our ad agency, turning down concepts, loving concepts, triple biding, preparing for production, calling in favors, on-set production, getting approvals, not getting approvals...and then starting all over again. After all that rush, you must then face the critics. And when it comes to advertising, well, everyone’s a critic. It’s tricky, it's hard work, and you have to be a little bit nuts to thrive in it…I personally think that it is the coolest job
ever! The best part of it all is that the whole country gets to see what you did today.
Now, I realize that most Southwest advertising admirers absolutely love our TV commercials with Oscar-worthy performances by our proud Employees giving heartfelt messages about their LUV for our Customers and their bags. Pure advertising genius, right? But if you haven't picked up a copy of
SPIRIT magazine recently, you've been missing out on some equally brilliant new Southwest print ads. Okay...so glossy paper is not quite as thrilling as a group of rowdy Ramp Agents stripping down to their painted bellies (watch some basketball this weekend if you haven’t yet seen this madness). But recently, our incredibly talented advertising agency, GSD&M Idea City, picked up some prestigious awards for an awesome Southwest print campaign.
Some of the toughest critics in the advertising industry (American Advertising Federation) awarded GSD&M with a Gold Consumer/Trade Campaign Award and a Silver Consumer/Trade Full Page Award for three Southwest print ads at the District ADDY® Awards. Texas is in the Tenth District, which also includes Arkansas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma. The Tenth District will host a special ADDY Awards Gala during the annual convention on April 16th. What’s even more exciting is that the district winners are now moving on to the national level, the nation's largest advertising competition.
The award-winning ads were commissioned by three separate internal Teams: Corporate Community Affairs (Communications),
southwest.com(Marketing), and Product Development (Marketing). They featured some clever visual effects to communicate three terrific Southwest initiatives: pets onboard; low-fare car rentals on
southwest.com; and Southwest's support of local community initiatives.
Congratulation to GSD&M and everyone who worked on these original (and now award-winning) print ads!
