Barbara Lippert's Critique: JetBlue's Last Laugh

They’re not visionaries, nor are they reinventing any ad form. Indeed, at the risk of wasting 60 seconds and seeming downright dumb, Jet Blue’s “mockumentary” merely makes fun of other airline commercials that offer incredibly obvious testimonials from actual passengers and crew members. But in restating the obvious, JetBlue is doing something profound.

When you think about it, and you get past the soaring music and the need to believe that the mechanics really care about their wrenches and that the pilots come from a family of pilots, airlines like American and United are congratulating themselves, and expecting to be rewarded, for things that should be an ordinary part of service.