Spirit Airlines ads riff on royal baby and Anthony Weiner
No one ever accused Spirit Airlines of being classy.
After all, the Florida-based airline sells wine in a can for $7 and has installed coach seats that don’t adjust.
Spirit is fortifying its brazen image with new ads that play off the birth of Britain’s royal baby as well as the latest misadventures of New York mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner.
One ad proclaims, “The Weiner rises again,” alongside an image of a hot dog wearing a mask and suggestive hat. Another shows a baby in a crown getting dropped out of a window.
Spirit has a history of such promotional gimmicks. The airline ran ads during the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico showing well-oiled, bikini-clad women lounging in the sand with the tag line: “Check out the oil on our beaches.”
Spirit’s most brash gimmick may have been when it hired a stripper mobile -- a van pulling a large plexiglass box containing a pole-dancing stripper -- to cruise the streets of Las Vegas, promoting cheap fares between Los Angeles and Sin City.
On the outside of the van, the airline promoted its $9 fare club with the messages “Take me home for $9” and “I’ll go both ways for $18.”
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