British Airways : Striving for informality

Less polish aims to maker a promotional film more convincing.

The Site

British Airways, the UK’s major airline, uses videos apparently made by passengers to promote its Club World service. In doing so it walks a risky line between the staged and the real.

British Airways promotes its Club World service with three short films in a feature called ‘A passenger’s perspective”. From a picture panel on the Club World page a window with ‘thumbnail’ stills of the films appears. Clicking a still starts the film playing, using Flash, while a ‘handwritten’ message captions the static photograph of the passenger that forms part of the display.

One film features Bob (Hallcliffe) explaining how he can use the Club kitchen to grab a snack between meals. He is flying to New York on a named flight and talks to camera before walking down a corridor to the kitchen. The camera wobbles a little as he walks.

The Takeaway

Marketing people are desperately trying to unlearn their film school lessons to exploit the web. YouTube has set the standards in shaky camerawork – a sign that the footage is ‘real’ user-generated content – and professionals are trying hard to mimic its lack of polish. If British Airways succeeds in hitting the home-made note, it makes the films more immediate and believable. If not, they just feel fake.

This selection is on the borderline. The passengers are probably real, because their acting is not quite good enough to be professional. But they are following a script, while using the same handwriting style for captioning all the films does not help the struggle for authenticity. The films certainly explain specific services in a clear and informal way – but they need to be either a lot more professional, or a little less, to avoid uncomfortable ‘Just what is this?’ questions that will dog viewers’ minds.

First published on 29 November, 2007