As Air Malta unveils its vibrant new image, local marketing gurus reveal their critiques to Christian Peregin.
There is consensus among the local marketing community about Air Malta’s €2 million makeover: it is “good”.
Not fantastic, ingenious or great value for money ... but, at first glance, no one seems to hate it, which is quite a feat considering the angry reactions major rebranding exercises tend to provoke.
“Nothing out of this world but good,” is how artist and PR professional James Vella Clark described it. He liked the prominent use of the word Malta and splitting the planes in red and white to replicate the Maltese flag. Both helped to make the aircraft part of the Malta brand.
He was much less impressed with the video that accompanied the livery’s launch, saying it was made up of “totally cliché ” stock photos, some of which were already published on sites like Flickr.
On the plus side, many more people would see the planes than the video, he said.
But what really annoyed Mr Vella Clark was that the job was entirely entrusted to a hand-picked foreign agency, when a pool of Maltese creative people could have done “an equally effective job ”.
“This campaign encourages us to be proud of our country, but whoever commissioned it is not even willing to acknowledge that we have local talent.”
BRND WGN’s managing director Peter-Jan Grech had a different take, saying a business like Air Malta deserved “the best of the best ”.
Fulfilling that requirement, international leaders Futurebrand (responsible for the branding of UPS, Mastercard and British Airways) did a “great” job of a “tough” project.
“Malta has a number of talented studios which could have done a great job, but not many can bring to the table the experience of Futurebrand,” he said, pointing out that Air Malta’s new look was a breath of fresh air.
Karl Grech, marketing director of Lighthouse, liked the attention to detail on the aircraft’s tail and the choice of colours, which “represent the texture of Malta”.
Far from being kitsch, as some readers described it online, Mr Grech said the “emotionally engaging” graphics over “clinical corporate branding” was in line with current international trends.
“The only thing I’m not very fond of is the script on the side, saying ‘The airline of the Maltese islands’, which is a bit of a mouthful.”
On the other hand, he agreed with the decision to write Malta instead of Air Malta on the side of the plane.
“I don’t think it needs to be spelled out to that degree.”
Mr Grech, who also happens to be a pilot, was least impressed by the cost and the fact that an airline cutting costs everywhere else spent such a large amount of money on rebranding.
The best local companies, or a consortium using foreign consultants, would have done an equally professional job and would have been lucky to get away with charging €250,000.
“Even then, a lot of questions would have been asked in Parliament,” he added sardonically.
Designer Matt de Marco, from Steves and Co., said Futurebrand took many traditional Maltese elements to create a more visually appealing look.
“It’s refreshing rather than rebranding, which is not necessarily bad but it is not particularly creative or innovative. To put it bluntly, this is not something people will study in the future,” he said.
Only the aircraft design has so far been unveiled and it remains to be seen how the new look will be applied across all media, including online.
Lara Parker and Daniel Abela, from Redorange, liked the bright colours, which reflected Malta as a destination, but said very little had been shown regarding the strategic repositioning of the company.
“We’re still not sure whether Air Malta is looking to project a low-cost or legacy airline image,” they said, pointing out that the focus so far was to project the perks of Malta as a destination rather than Air Malta as an airline brand.
They were mostly annoyed by the fact that local talent was not even considered on an assignment so tightly bound with national identity.
“Since this is Malta’s national airline, the least they could have done was to give local and international advertising agencies a fair chance to participate in an open pitch.”
One major PR agent who preferred not to be named was less concerned, pointing out that the only local input was in the video production, which “fell short” and should be discarded once the first advert was released.
He said the airline’s identity, based on solid research and positioning Air Malta as a destination airline, should be wholly embraced and the country should now move on.
The question now is whether the rebranding will have any tangible effect on the troubled airline’s finances ... preferably more than €2 million worth.