British Airways' £60m Mistake - Project Utopia (Reworked)

Join this channel to get early access to new videos a week ahead of their public release:

This is a reworked and reuploaded version of the original video.

Hello everyone! :D

This week, we look at what happens when a flag carrier attempts to distance itself from the flag it represents. British Airways, in a drive to become a 'world' airline rather than a British airline, embarked on an ambitious but ultimately misguided corporate rebranding, but one that would cost the carrier dearly in terms of reputation.

The views and opinions expressed in this video are my personal appraisal and are not the views and opinions of any of these individuals or bodies who have kindly supplied me with footage and images.

If you enjoyed this video, why not leave a like, and consider subscribing for more great content coming soon.

Press the Join button to get access to new videos a week ahead of schedule by becoming a channel member for just £2.99 a month!

Thanks again, everyone, and enjoy! :D

References:
- Designweek (and their respective references)
- Wikipedia (and its respective references)

[robertmcghintheorca]

If British Airways had just painted seven planes in these liveries to represent an aspect of the seven continents of the world, I think that it would've been perfectly fine. But painting the entire fleet was definitely not a good move.

[BrigadoonBilly-driu]

I was BA cabin crew at the time. There was a portakabin outside the Compass Centre at LHR with a 'peep-show' of the new liveries. We had to give feedback. OMG the Dutch toilet tile and the blue and gold sari were the worst, the Polish chicken coming in in third. We told them but BA didn't listen to their staff then and apparently still don't now. 🤣

[rupanjan]

The vision of ‘airline for the world’ was actually spot on, but what they didn’t consider was BA’s geographical disadvantage unless you consider Americas and Europe to be ‘the world’. Emirates today is what the BA execs then envisioned but it was never meant to be …

[gc]

Jaguar seemingly didn’t remember this debacle which became the textbook ‘how not to rebrand’ or have deliberately attempted to one up it.

[HeyItsAJOmega]

Some of the artworks are nice, but spending £60m on such a campaign that attempted to take the British aspect out of BRITISH Airways? Yeah, pretty misguided.

[emmas]

The retro liveries for the centenary looked great.

[alexandermathar]

I loved those tail artworks. They were a breath of fresh air. Pity the customers didn't accept them.

[ffwildcat]

Not sure I ever expected to hear “90s grunge phase” on this channel. Interesting to see how it affected corporate culture though!

[bishwatntl]

Not true to say that BOAC had been the international carrier, with BEA as the domestic one. The clue is in the full titles - BEA served UK and European routes, while BOAC the long-haul and intercontinental routes.

[spacedock]

It was an unmitigated disaster and actually cost £64 million. I was flying for BA at the time and when I saw the proposed aircraft liveries I felt physically sick. BA didn't even use their own staff for the presentations - they used a PR/marketing company. I pointed out that BA was dumping their national identity for unrecognisable graffiti. The mock-up photos of the aircraft parked at terminals at Heathrow seemed impressive to the PR people but I pointed out that the aircraft spent more than half their time away, often at foreign airports, where they would be just another random garish livery at an airport full of garish liveries. It was an embarrassment to fly them 😔. The 747 with the BOAC livery only had it on one side to save money 😔. I can confirm that the "ethnic" tails, as they were known, caused regular confusion and drew less than impressed comments from air traffic controllers. We were all very relieved when the fleet started being repainted in the Chatham livery which was very popular. There were a couple of other notable special pain schemes. B757 G-CPET was painted (by volunteers) in the Landor livery for a month before it and the other two remaining 757's were retired. Also there was an A319 (G-EUPC) painted for the London Olympics. It was known by the crews as the "custard comet"! Another special livery was "The Dove" which was unpopular as it just looked like a faded paint scheme. Shortly after losing his job with BA Bob Ayling lost his other job too, as the boss of the disaster that was the Millennium Dome (now O2 Arena) construction project.

[flyme]

This project also coincided with a number of training programs that crew were sent on, my most memorable one being a rather strange course called “ breakthrough “ it was a very uncomfortable experience for most of us, dabbling in physiological sessions and causing some distress for delegates. I have to say that the majority of my career was wonderful, but as far back as 2010, it was very apparent that the airline wanted to move forward with its plans to replace legacy crew, a separate fleet created to be operated by crew on different terms and conditions. The covid pandemic provided the perfect opportunity to achieve its aims, in a move that was to see thousands of long serving staff forced to leave.

[richardbutterfield]

I loved the utopia liveries. Innovative and progressive.

[conradharcourt]

I'm not sure that trade unions reacting in response to a 10% reduction in workforce and substantial wage cuts could really be called 'militant'. Were they not just trying to do what their members were paying them to do?

[Kiinell]

The point of branding is it's supposed to be consistent. This scheme failed on rule 1.

[ccooper]

If only jaGUar had watched this video before flushing their brand down the crapper...

[binkbonusgbr]

I can only speak for how I see it but, rightly or wrongly, there has been a gradual feeling over the past 25 years or so that the British should feel ashamed of who they are and what went before and this campaign by BA just seemed to reinforce that. Some might feel today when seeing the negative reaction at the time to be something the media hyped up but I think the media were more trusted in those days and this was actually just an honest reaction from a time when people felt they could actually say how they felt.

[ed_menno]

Anoither great documentary. At the time I liked the Landor livery and disliked Project Utopia, but now it seems way ahead of its time and actually pretty cool. However this 'inclusive' mantra did not extend to other flag carriers. Those in the Middle East maintain their national identity with sleek corporate looks combined with strong customer focus, world-beating airports and are not bogged down with industtial relations. So maybe this is where BA should have focused as well, rather than becoming one of the world's least favourite airlines.

[MultiSUPERLATIVO]

I still have the booklet published by BA showing all the paintings with the description given by the artists about the inspiration for each of them.

[andrewrussell]

Stupid from the point of view of marketing an airline.
Attempts to be a ‘world’ airline were laughable (and ohh how the other carriers laughed)
This multi ethnic tail planes just presented a confused identity.
The various images should have been used for menu cards or blankets or even uniforms, but to change the look of a very successful and identifiable carrier was a miss-step of enormous scale.

[sammilburn]

Landor was their best livery imo, and still looked fresh on the 747-400 when repainted for the 100 years celebration. Wish they’d kept it, hopefully we might see it on a 787, 777x or a350