"Most travellers fly to USA and Canada via the Atlantic with a stopover in Europe, or via Hong Kong, Bangkok or Singapore. There is very little awareness of the Taipei option. Our job was to tell them about this option," says O&M creative consultant, Sudip Bandyopadhyay. "The communication objective of this ad was simply to tell people that China Airlines offers a hopping flight to North America and Japan, with a single stopover in Taipei."

Though the copy stresses on comfort via the fastest route, the airline has also mentioned other features such as frequency, flying experience, wine, etc. to complement the core idea.

The agency, which had worked on the launch campaign almost a year back, is targeting frequent travellers to Canada.

"Basically, the campaign is meant for travellers with a particular profile. For instance, we are targeting travellers from Chandigarh who go abroad often. Then there is sort of a spill over to masses as well. So the idea was to differentiate this airline through its route benefit. And this idea was presented in an interesting manner," adds Bandyopadhyay.

The advertisement has been released in all the leading national dailies such as The Times of India and The Hindustan Times. "We have also chosen leading dailies in the southern region and this is expected to last for another two months."

On the decision to choose depiction of a route through visuals (the campaign portrays a destination map from Delhi to various destinations), the consultant says, "The challenge was to create an ad that simply and quickly communicated what we wanted it to. So obviously a visual route was the way to go. We thought of various visual representations, but junked them because they were either too complicated or were not fresh enough."

"Then Radhika Oberoi, the copywriter on the job, came up with the idea of a jet aircraft's vapour trail. I saw the visual in my mind and did the layout there and then, using the split bus shelter and the press ad with the gutter space as media innovations."

China Airlines was launched with an advertisement created by Bandyopadhyay and his copy partner as well as O&M creative consultant Ajay Gahlaut. The duo had used the phrase 'in the blink of an eye' and showed three split images, the first and last with eyes open and the middle one with the eyes closed.

"The second ad was a simple one which just required us to announce the arrival of the airline in India. The message was: 'We China Airlines, now in India' written vertically, like Chinese writing!" In-flight magazine were also used to create awareness with visuals showing `Gol-gappas with chopsticks'.

"China Airlines is a fairly new entrant into the category and is still testing the waters. However a good beginning has been made," concludes Bandyopadhyay.