SERVICE DESIGNER
BRITISH AIRWAYS DEFINED THE BRAND EXPERIENCE
Delivering on brand promise
British Airways redefined long distance travel in the 1980s. They established a new benchmark for the business class experience with redesigned cabins and lounges that offered showers, clothes pressing as well as first class food and beverages.
Their brand experience success has, over the years, been emulated by almost every airline that aspires to offering a luxury service. But few ever managed to replicate the quality of the airline’s High Life Magazine.
Having a keen interest in modernist architecture, I pitched an idea to High Life magazine for an article that, in a marketing sense, would associate the airline with excellence and, in this case, excellence in architecture.
Here’s what I wrote.
Brand strategy
Project: High LIfe magazine
Client: British Airways
Industry: Airline
In-flight entertainment
British Airways' on-board magazine, High Life, first took to the skies in 1973 and has provided British Airways’ customers with travel inspiration ever since.
The magazine has document significant milestones in the airline’s history including the launch of Concorde and the A380, as well as featuring cover stars such as Sir Paul McCartney, Tracey Emin, Idris Elba and HRH The Prince of Wales.
Published by Cedar for British Airways, the magazine went online in September 2020, which replaced the onboard paper version of the publication.
Creating brand value
Big-name architects have existed for decades but the idea of 'starchitecture' fits perfectly with modern celebrity culture. Frank Gehery's Bilbao museum and Hertzog and de Meuron's Tate Modern showed architecture could draw as many visitors to museums as the art inside.
I pitched the idea of featuring five new museums with interesting architecture to British Airways High Life magazine, which is published by Cedar. I gathered the information from the architects, sourced the images of the buildings, and wrote the feature to High Life's requirements.