Delta Air Lines – Brand Strategy 2017-2024

I love the spirit of ambition, resilience, and optimism that’s core to the Delta brand.
☝️This spirit is really what “Keep Climbing” is all about.

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I was lucky to spend over 6 years as the strategic lead for Delta while working at Wieden+Kennedy. It’s rare to work on a brand that has a such consistent and relevant POV, and even rarer to have such a long-standing and trusted partnership with a brand team. My work influenced brand strategy across the entire enterprise and informed creative across every consumer touchpoint. Key initiatives focused on recruiting younger travelers, retaining business travelers’s loyalty, guiding Delta through the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic, and most consistently: inspiring people to get out into the world.

 
 

Over these years I learned an immeasurable amount about leadership, long-term brand planning, and finding creative opportunities for the brand that had an impact on the business. I took a few pretty cool trips, too.

Here, I’ve collected some of my favorite iterations of the “Keep Climbing” story, and a peek under hood at the creative strategy that got us there.

 

'The World is Your Kaleidoscope'

 

“The World is Your Kaleidoscope” (2023)
Why settle for a gray world when you could rediscover a more colorful one?

  • The Context: Get Delta out of the ‘airline’ conversation, and back into the travel conversation.

  • The Truth: Post-pandemic, people aren’t just looking to travel. They are looking to travel to transform them. Especially as we settle into the reality of a more predictable routine.

  • The POV: If you want to see things differently, start by seeing different things.

 
 

'Odyssey'

 

“Odyssey” (2022)
The world’s greatest stories never start on a couch or in a desk chair.

  • The Context: Hybrid-work has made the need for business travel less urgent and substitutes in-person for screens. 

  • The Truth: Sure, dialing-in and video-chats can mostly get the job done...but that’s not how we build relationships, create memories, or get us to our next chapter.

  • The POV: Stories don’t come from staying put. Stories come from showing up.

 
 

'Close the Gap'

 

“Close the Gap” (2019)
Believe in the connections between us, even if they are hard to see.

  • The Context: The news cycle was a constant refrain that people were further apart than ever before. 

  • The Truth: When you’re an airline, you gain a different perspective on distance: no matter how far away you go, you tend find that people are remarkably more alike than they are different.

  • The POV: Delta makes the world a smaller place.

 

'Runways'

 

“Runways” (2018)
They say “good things come to those who wait.” But, since when was that really true?

  • The Context: Younger travelers thought of Delta as a stuffy, business-focused airline. We wanted to prove to them that we are a travel company, and give them a new perspective.

  • The Truth: Opportunities and experiences aren’t going to just fall in your lap.

  • The POV: Good things come to those who go.

 

In addition to traditional creative campaigns, a major part of the strategy job was finding new opportunities for Delta to expand beyond the confines of a ‘traditional airline.’ We made a lot of ads, and we made a lot of other stuff, too.

Here’s a few of my favorites:

 

Creative Credits:
CDs: Sean McLaughlin, Jaclyn Crowley, Rose Sacktor, Michael Hagos
Creatives: Michelle Lamont, Jessica Shriftman, Ian Hart, Peter Jostrand, Brad Phifer, Hope Jordan, Garrick Sheldon, Toliver Roebuck