In the first two ads shown here, our assignment was to announce a doubling up of United Airlines daily routes – from China to the USA and from Beijing to Tokyo. We did it with a pair of visual puns, rendered in elegant typographic wordplay. Puns pack a punch again in the next two ads. This time, our job was to tell a mostly South Asian audience that United now flew direct to Delhi, daily. We came up with a pair of punning promises that paid off as the case study shows.

The Background:

United Airlines was introducing its Hong Kong-New Delhi daily flight. It needed ads that spoke to Indian businessmen and executives in both cities and told them what the advantages of flying UA were: There was a flight to New Delhi every single day. And there were no stops, unlike flights on Cathay Pacific, Singapore Airlines or Thai Airways.

The Solution:

Ads that connected with the audience and spelled out the advantages clearly, in their own language.

The Result:

A satisfying outcome unique to Indian flight sectors: overbooking.