James Siminoff

Up In the Air, a decent movie, total marketing disaster

I fly a lot, last year over 200,000 miles mostly on American Airlines.  This gives me some pretty strong opinions about Airlines, Airports and how they operate.  It is amazing to realize that overall the airline industry as a entirety is a money loser, which has made me question their advertising strategies and why they build mausoleums.

A movie that is now in theaters, Up In the Air, is about a road warrior who basically lives on planes and his whole life is around mileage programs, I can definitely relate to both I am a total mileage whore.

The movie heavily features (and I assume they paid) American Airlines, Hertz and Hilton.  What I do not understand is that the movie’s message is that too much business travel destroys your life.  In fact in my opinion the movie goes way too far into demonizing business travel.  Travel done in moderation is a great thing for people, it opens our minds to other things and face to face interaction is important.

Why travel companies like American Airlines paid to have their image intertwined to a plot which so miserably portrays their business is beyond me.