EASYJET HOLIDAYS: ‘FARQUHAR’

Toff-needling, watchdog-bothering radio campaign

PROBLEM: People imagine easyJet holidays are a bit rough.

SOLUTION: Play with the snobbery, and point out you're paying a premium for nothing.

MEDIA: RADIO

While most people are happy to fly on easyJet without giving it much thought, the prospect of spending two weeks on an easyJet holiday still gives many the shivers. Which is their loss, as the package they buy from a supposedly more upmarket brand could well end up being the same deal they could have got for far less with easyJet holidays.

To dramatise the fact that you don't need to pay a posh price for a posh holiday, we created Frederick F Farquhar, a pompous, out-of-touch travel company boss who acts as a foil for easyJet holidays. And to help us bring him to life, we enlisted the services of brilliant comic actor Alex Macqueen.

In each ad, high-end rip-off merchant Farquhar plugs his own ‘luxury vacations’ - setting the stage for easyJet holidays to warn the public not to ‘let this Farquhar take you for a ride’ (once we’d persuaded an initially reluctant RACC to sign off the ads).

After landing the idea with an initial series of radio spots, later entries enabled us to deliver tactical messages coinciding with events like pay day or Blue Monday (the day in January that’s supposedly the most depressing of the year).