Emirates: advert-top-1 by Y&R London

Emirates has released its latest marketing campaign to promote travel on its Economy class. Emirates’ latest ads feature a series of characters who try to wrangle a seat upgrade at an unnamed airline’s check-in counter. Each spot ends with the ultimate tip for travellers: 'Don’t upgrade your seat, upgrade your airline. Fly Emirates.' Seasoned with a liberal dose of humour, the scripts tap into a rich vein of anecdotes about what people might say or do when they ask for an upgrade - from name-dropping and flattery to other more creative endeavours.

Also in a departure from typical airline advertising, the ads do not show the actual inflight product. Even the airline brand is not revealed until the end of the spot.

Anchored by a hero 30-second spot, and supported by over a dozen different vignettes, the campaign was created by Y&R London and directed by ‘Jones’ (AKA Michael Woodward and Maximilian Baron). It will be run worldwide throughout 2018 in Emirates’ key markets including: the US, Brazil, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, UK, France, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Hungary, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, Cyprus, Canada and the Pan Arab region. Emirates will also release a selection of these vignettes on its own social media channels over the coming weeks, featuring a different “upgrade trick” each time.