Real You: The more things change, the more they don’t

Posted on | March 6, 2009 |

International Women’s Day is Sunday, March 8th. Founded in 1911 by Clara Zetkin, the goal of day was to get women together to press for equality. In many countries, it’s a holiday more important than Mother’s Day. IWD celebrates the accomplishments of women, while spotlighting how far we need to go. If you’re still thinking we addressed our inequality issues in this country in the 1970s, think again. Here’s a recent example.

I love Southwest Airlines and fly them regularly. But what’s with the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue promotion? A spokeswoman says the company was trying to be “fun and edgy“. What? Couldn’t the folks at Southwest and Sports Illustrated think ahead to the fact that a mostly-naked super model painted on the plane would offend customers - especially female ones?

Although the company says negative complaints are only about “25 percent of the feedback”, do you really want this kind of attention?

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To me, the Southwest brand is friendly. But not edgy. And that’s good. Southwest has a sound: “ding”. That’s fun. Not edgy. My teenage son says it was a way for Southwest to ”make some money in a down economy”. Maybe. He also thinks if it was a male model on the side of the fuselage, I’d feel differently.

But he’s wrong. And so is Southwest. When you choose to partner your brand with another brand, you have a responsibility to your customers to make a good choice. To pair yourself with a complimentary brand that appeals to your customers (adds value for them) and makes you look good. In this partnership, all we see is a really big model on an airplane, some people from Southwest who got to meet a super model and some cash changing hands.

That said, I love airplane branding. It makes those delays a little more interesting. Bring back the Braniff Modrian days of colorful creativity, just not the flight attendant uniforms, if you get my drift.

Kaira Sturdivant Rouda thinks Bar Rafaeli is beautiful, Southwest should stick to fun and avoid EDGY, and that we all need more fun in our lives today. So smile! It’s the weekend and even though you lose an hour, remember Sunday is International Women’s Day.