I first saw this story from Zenobia, then Jess McCabe added to it, and then Twisty got a hold of it and spanked it. I have little to add to their words, but I thought that what the story really needed was a photo essay.
Short version: an airline is putting together a special “shopping flight” from Liverpool to Paris. For women only, of course, ‘cos affluent men aren’t into conspicuous consumption at all, just sitting there with their cigars and handmade suits and sports cars nodding indulgently at the silly women addicted to spendspendspending.
So what has the airline’s brilliant, creative, innovative marketing department come up with? Well, we ladies just can’t get enough pink, right? So, they’re touting a plane travel experience that is pinkalicious from the tip of its tail to the bottom of it’s luggage bays.
NB. Artist impression of new airline livery, not actual airline livery
Fly Pink, ladies! Where the passengers will quaff pink champagne
(what, no pink gin, pink martini or pink daiquiris?)
Passengers will presumably munch through pink cupcakes
Having carefully donned their pinkest outfit
And their pinkest accessories
Not forgetting the pinkest pets:
After all, we women just love having products marketed at us, as especially for us, where not a lick of market research has been done, just making the product available in pink. By the end of a day on Pink Air, would you be able to see anything but a pink haze?
The cabin:
The meal:
The arrival is meant to be something like this, is I’m certain the intent of the marketers:
But I think the only way to enjoy a flight on Pink Air would be to take it dressed in this:
Aaargh!…a headless pink poodle!
Oh, it’s just got its head down.
It’s embarassed by its owner.
Imagine if it went down over the sea, leaving a giant pink stain in the ocean and dyeing fish for miles around.
Would the life rafts be pink, too?
My eyes! My eyes! When was it decided that pink was the default color for females? It was bad enough when all the little girls’ toys turned pink and lavender … now they’re trying to drown adult women in a sea of pink too. I know I wouldn’t find the color so objectionable if it weren’t for the subtext (you’re delicate, you’re a girl, you’re a lesser being, but at least you’re cute).
Fuck, that’s ugly.
Sorry. Just slipped out. But would people really want to travel in that… thing?
I dunno. I got over the whole “everything, but *everything* must be pink” phase when I was about eight or so. These days, it’s okay as an accent colour, but more than one item per person is too much.
I just love the amount of real, serious thought which appears to have gone into this –
“Hey, babes love shopping, right?”
“Yeah, and they love pink.”
“So let’s combine the two – pink and shopping! They’ll love it!” “Yeah!!!”
Thank you Bill and Ted…
I do love your remix of the plane.
Well, TimT, my pictures may just be exaggerating for effect a little.
I imagine that the airline will attempting to do something just a little more sophisticated than brothel-pink everything, although with the pink marketing ghetto for anything aimed at women, I wouldn’t put it past them.
I forgot to add a link to the original Guardian news report which eloquently describes the pink ghetto:
They forgot to mention the dreaded Pink Alley at the toy shop. There’s nothing wrong with pink when it’s part of an array of colour choices, especially when it’s a colour that suits one’s complexion (I own and wear several pink tops), but it’s hard not to get resentful about the cheapness of the way marketers think women will buy any old crap as long as it’s pink.
Men aren’t expected to live only in a blue cocoon, just because that’s what they wore when they were babies (and the rigid genderising of baby clothes is a whole nother rant). My husband likes pink a lot, and he has the hot-pink phone. I wouldn’t touch it with a barge-pole, because a woman with a pink phone has been ghettoised.
Sorry about your eyes, Kristi. Did I overdo the pink haze effect? Maybe I did.
Evil Fizz, I’m glad you liked the plane.
Someone on IBTP suggested that the least they could do is have stewards in pink hotpants. My google fu is failing – I can’t find one muscleboy in pink hotpants on the interwebs. I’ll have to remix a leatherboy.
It’s not just the pink on the aircraft outside, it’s the florid French font on the outside. And I bet all the seats have floral designs as well. ‘Cos when you’re crammed in between five other people, your right leg has lost all sensation, and you’ve got an ache in your neck that just won’t stop, it must be comforting to know that the seat is all covered over with flowers.
I like the purple/pink haze in the middle three photographs, though. It’s kind of hallucinogenic.
Oh, I see, I thought the first picture was grabbed from their website, but now I squint and read the French text… ‘
I’m still willing to bet on the floral seating, though.
TimT, I’m sure that you’re right.
Anyway, this is for Ms Kate at IBTP:
[...] Tigtog: Puking Up Pink [...]
I hope they have plenty of Pepto on board… :)
Hate pink.
Hate shopping even more.
Won’t be going…
[...] the pinkification of everything (something also deplored by Barbara Ehrenreich), Twisty and Tigtog. Coincidentally, while relaxing with the dead-tree paper, I wandered by accident into the My Career [...]
[...] the pinkification of everything (something also deplored by Barbara Ehrenreich, Twisty and Tigtog). Coincidentally, while relaxing with the dead-tree paper, I wandered by accident into the My [...]
I love the airline paint. I actually run my own Virtual Airline and would love to use that Airline design on my aircrafts in different shades of grey. If you have any objection to my action then please note to me on callumboy1994@hotmail.co.uk. on website i will notify that the design is by Tigtog for just now.
Thank you sir.
Callum Gowans,
FlyBrit CEO.