Rocky Mountain News
URL: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/business/article/0,1299,DRMN_4_2409439,00.html
UniTed's secret out
Airline creates 'much buzz' with its marketing concept teasing to low-fare carrier
By David Kesmodel, Rocky Mountain News
November 7, 2003
Who's behind the kooky, mysterious marketing symbol known as Ted?
None other than United Airlines.
The bankrupt carrier is using the funky guerrilla marketing campaign to build buzz for its new low-cost, low-fare carrier, as was first reported Thursday night on RockyMountainNews.com.
Ted is believed to be the name of the airline-within-an-airline, which will launch from Denver International Airport in February. T-E-D are the last three letters in United, and a source close to the company said Thursday that Ted is the planned name.
Officials at Denver's dominant carrier refused to confirm the airline is behind Ted - the subject of stickers, signs and giveaways throughout Denver.
But the Rocky Mountain News on Thursday traced two Web sites - www.meetted.com and www.flyted.com - to computer servers at Chicago-based United. The latter site isn't yet operating.
United spokesman Jeff Green said only that the airline thinks "it is great there is so much buzz and interest about United's low-cost operation."
He added, "We will share the details when the time is right."
United is expected to announce the name and branding for its budget carrier - whose main hub will be at DIA - in the next few weeks.
Denverites already are getting to know Ted - the figure who mysteriously bought lunch for everyone at a Chipotle in LoDo on Tuesday and a slice of cheesecake for diners at a Cheesecake Factory last week.
And Ted has turned up elsewhere on the Front Range. According to the Greeley Tribune, Adam Kaiser woke Tuesday and found a huge "Ted" spelled out in sod in the middle of his 240-acre family farm near Lucerne.
"It's a very interesting concept," Joshua Marks of the George Washington University Aviation Institute said of the campaign. "It demonstrates that their approach for the new airline is going to be very different from the way they have conducted their advertising in the past. It's just different."
He said the unusual effort "is promising" for UAL Corp.'s United. "It should differentiate (the low-fare carrier) brand" from the main carrier, he said.
The so-called teaser campaign "is geared towards somebody in their late teens, early 20s," said Steve Whittier, creative director of Denver-based Factory Design Labs, which creates Web sites for Sony, Disney, Columbia Pictures and Copper Mountain Resort.
"Obviously, it's for somebody who is into sort of a free, independent-skier sort of lifestyle," he said. "They are playing to reality advertising. They are definitely trying to go low-cost. They are trying to create an Internet cult following."
The site www.meetted.com includes the blue wording "-Ted" on a bright orange background, with the hyphen suggesting that "Ted" is the suffix of a larger word - like "United."
The Web site, which lets people submit their "Ted sightings and stories," is registered to Charles Murphy, of Plymouth, Minn., according to Whois.Net., and the site traces to a United computer server.
A man named Charles Murphy in the information technology department at Fallon Worldwide in Minneapolis - United's ad agency - would not confirm to the News he was the same Charles Murphy.
Another Web site, www.flyted.com, is not up and running but traces to a server for United's frequent-flier unit. The site is registered to Brinks Hofer Gilson & Lione, United's intellectual-property law firm.
Representatives of Fallon Worldwide and the Chicago office of Brinks Hofer Gilson & Lione did not return phone calls. An official at Denver's Sales Fuel Group, a marketing firm working on the campaign, did not return a call.
On www.meetted.com, there are all sorts of photos of Denver-area people and places that include "Ted" stickers and signs.
Some photos show orange-and-blue "Ted" stickers and symbols at a Denver Broncos home game.
Another photo shows Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper standing next to a man with an orange-and-blue "Ted" sticker. A person holding up an "I'm not Ted" sign was spotted at Hickenlooper's news conference on parking meters Wednesday.
"Is it some illegal cult?" wondered Lindy Eichenbaum Lent, spokeswoman for Hickenlooper. "I assumed it was some college sociological project."
Another photo on www.meetted.com shows a young patron at an Einstein Bros. Bagels holding a copy of Boulder's Daily Camera with a sticker on it.
Taxi drivers, meanwhile, have worn "I'm not Ted" caps.
The campaign features an element of mystery that can get people excited about the product, said David Scheidt, creative director of Italia Denver.
"A teaser is one of those things, if you do it right, you can get so much mileage out of it," he said. "People start talking about it, trying to figure it out. It's kind of like a real live mystery that people get to solve themselves. You can get so much out of it, rather than driving down the road and seeing a billboard that says, 'United has a new low-cost carrier.' "
If Ted is the name for the operation, it wouldn't be the first short, off-the-beaten-path name for a carrier-within-a-carrier. Delta Air Lines operates Song and Air Canada has a low-cost subsidiary called Zip.
United in September said its low-cost airline would eventually deploy 19 of its 40 156-seat Airbus A320 jets in Denver.
The new carrier - part of United's strategy to exit bankruptcy next year - will seek to wrest customers from Denver-based rival Frontier. It will match the lowest fares in the marketplace.
Seven routes have been named, including Denver-Las Vegas, Denver-Phoenix and Denver-New Orleans. Additional leisure routes will be revealed this month. In each route named so far, United will offer the most departures and the most seat capacity, United has said.
[email protected] or 303-892-2514. News staff writer Rachel Brand contributed to this report.
Copyright 2003, Rocky Mountain News. All Rights Reserved.
URL: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/business/article/0,1299,DRMN_4_2409439,00.html
UniTed's secret out
Airline creates 'much buzz' with its marketing concept teasing to low-fare carrier
By David Kesmodel, Rocky Mountain News
November 7, 2003
Who's behind the kooky, mysterious marketing symbol known as Ted?
None other than United Airlines.
The bankrupt carrier is using the funky guerrilla marketing campaign to build buzz for its new low-cost, low-fare carrier, as was first reported Thursday night on RockyMountainNews.com.
Ted is believed to be the name of the airline-within-an-airline, which will launch from Denver International Airport in February. T-E-D are the last three letters in United, and a source close to the company said Thursday that Ted is the planned name.
Officials at Denver's dominant carrier refused to confirm the airline is behind Ted - the subject of stickers, signs and giveaways throughout Denver.
But the Rocky Mountain News on Thursday traced two Web sites - www.meetted.com and www.flyted.com - to computer servers at Chicago-based United. The latter site isn't yet operating.
United spokesman Jeff Green said only that the airline thinks "it is great there is so much buzz and interest about United's low-cost operation."
He added, "We will share the details when the time is right."
United is expected to announce the name and branding for its budget carrier - whose main hub will be at DIA - in the next few weeks.
Denverites already are getting to know Ted - the figure who mysteriously bought lunch for everyone at a Chipotle in LoDo on Tuesday and a slice of cheesecake for diners at a Cheesecake Factory last week.
And Ted has turned up elsewhere on the Front Range. According to the Greeley Tribune, Adam Kaiser woke Tuesday and found a huge "Ted" spelled out in sod in the middle of his 240-acre family farm near Lucerne.
"It's a very interesting concept," Joshua Marks of the George Washington University Aviation Institute said of the campaign. "It demonstrates that their approach for the new airline is going to be very different from the way they have conducted their advertising in the past. It's just different."
He said the unusual effort "is promising" for UAL Corp.'s United. "It should differentiate (the low-fare carrier) brand" from the main carrier, he said.
The so-called teaser campaign "is geared towards somebody in their late teens, early 20s," said Steve Whittier, creative director of Denver-based Factory Design Labs, which creates Web sites for Sony, Disney, Columbia Pictures and Copper Mountain Resort.
"Obviously, it's for somebody who is into sort of a free, independent-skier sort of lifestyle," he said. "They are playing to reality advertising. They are definitely trying to go low-cost. They are trying to create an Internet cult following."
The site www.meetted.com includes the blue wording "-Ted" on a bright orange background, with the hyphen suggesting that "Ted" is the suffix of a larger word - like "United."
The Web site, which lets people submit their "Ted sightings and stories," is registered to Charles Murphy, of Plymouth, Minn., according to Whois.Net., and the site traces to a United computer server.
A man named Charles Murphy in the information technology department at Fallon Worldwide in Minneapolis - United's ad agency - would not confirm to the News he was the same Charles Murphy.
Another Web site, www.flyted.com, is not up and running but traces to a server for United's frequent-flier unit. The site is registered to Brinks Hofer Gilson & Lione, United's intellectual-property law firm.
Representatives of Fallon Worldwide and the Chicago office of Brinks Hofer Gilson & Lione did not return phone calls. An official at Denver's Sales Fuel Group, a marketing firm working on the campaign, did not return a call.
On www.meetted.com, there are all sorts of photos of Denver-area people and places that include "Ted" stickers and signs.
Some photos show orange-and-blue "Ted" stickers and symbols at a Denver Broncos home game.
Another photo shows Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper standing next to a man with an orange-and-blue "Ted" sticker. A person holding up an "I'm not Ted" sign was spotted at Hickenlooper's news conference on parking meters Wednesday.
"Is it some illegal cult?" wondered Lindy Eichenbaum Lent, spokeswoman for Hickenlooper. "I assumed it was some college sociological project."
Another photo on www.meetted.com shows a young patron at an Einstein Bros. Bagels holding a copy of Boulder's Daily Camera with a sticker on it.
Taxi drivers, meanwhile, have worn "I'm not Ted" caps.
The campaign features an element of mystery that can get people excited about the product, said David Scheidt, creative director of Italia Denver.
"A teaser is one of those things, if you do it right, you can get so much mileage out of it," he said. "People start talking about it, trying to figure it out. It's kind of like a real live mystery that people get to solve themselves. You can get so much out of it, rather than driving down the road and seeing a billboard that says, 'United has a new low-cost carrier.' "
If Ted is the name for the operation, it wouldn't be the first short, off-the-beaten-path name for a carrier-within-a-carrier. Delta Air Lines operates Song and Air Canada has a low-cost subsidiary called Zip.
United in September said its low-cost airline would eventually deploy 19 of its 40 156-seat Airbus A320 jets in Denver.
The new carrier - part of United's strategy to exit bankruptcy next year - will seek to wrest customers from Denver-based rival Frontier. It will match the lowest fares in the marketplace.
Seven routes have been named, including Denver-Las Vegas, Denver-Phoenix and Denver-New Orleans. Additional leisure routes will be revealed this month. In each route named so far, United will offer the most departures and the most seat capacity, United has said.
[email protected] or 303-892-2514. News staff writer Rachel Brand contributed to this report.
Copyright 2003, Rocky Mountain News. All Rights Reserved.
