Air Canada Puts the Business Traveller at the Centre of Its Brand
Air Canada's 'We're in the Business of You' is a 2019 integrated campaign created by FCB Montreal that repositions the airline's North America Business Class offering around customer service excellence and the seamless travel experience of the individual business traveller, running across television, out-of-home, digital, print, social media, and sales communications in Canada from April through June of that year.
The campaign launched officially on April 8, 2019, according to Newswire Ca, with a television flight timed deliberately to coincide with the 2019 NHL playoffs — a three-week window that placed Air Canada in front of one of the most commercially engaged audiences in Canadian sport. Creative assets comprised one 60-second television commercial and two 15-second spots, as documented by adsoftheworld.com and Campaigncanada Ca. Out-of-home placements extended the campaign's reach into airports and arenas, reinforcing the message at the precise moments business travellers move through their professional lives.
In Canada, the campaign addressed a competitive and strategically important segment. Andrew Shibata, Managing Director of Brand at Air Canada, stated, as reported by newswire.ca, that the campaign was designed to reinforce how Air Canada employees strive to earn customer loyalty each day through superior travel experiences, while highlighting the tangible business benefits of choosing Air Canada Business Class. The campaign's concept — that the airline is fundamentally in the business of its passengers — represents a deliberate shift from product-led messaging toward a customer-experience-led brand position, a strategic evolution consistent with the long-running FCB and Air Canada relationship. The campaign archived under March 2019 on Clapboard.com carries a Clapboard Score of 60 out of 100, reflecting competent execution within a category where emotional differentiation remains difficult to sustain.
Air Canada identified the frequent business traveller as the primary audience for this campaign. The strategic insight is precise: business travellers do not simply choose a seat — they choose a system of reliability, comfort, and service that either supports or disrupts their professional performance. By centring the campaign concept on the individual traveller's needs rather than the airline's product attributes, FCB Montreal repositioned Air Canada Business Class as a partner in professional life rather than a premium commodity.
In Canada, Air Canada's principal domestic competitors are WestJet and Porter Airlines, as identified by studocu.com. On transcontinental and international business routes, Air Canada competes directly with carriers including Delta Air Lines and United Airlines. According to researchdive.com, Delta Air Lines, American Airlines, Lufthansa Group, and United Airlines each held approximately five percent of global airline market activity in 2019, indicating a highly fragmented competitive environment in which no single carrier dominates and brand differentiation carries disproportionate strategic value. The 2019 global airline industry generated an estimated revenue in the hundreds of billions of US dollars, according to researchdive.com, with North American carriers operating within a market forecast for sustained growth.
FCB Montreal brought considerable institutional knowledge to this brief. According to Little Black Book, FCB had worked on the Air Canada account for more than twenty years by late 2017, with the relationship beginning approximately in the mid-1990s. By 2017, as also reported by lbbonline.com, Air Canada expanded FCB Canada's mandate to encompass retail communications, digital communications, booking experiences, and loyalty experiences, with FCB Montreal leading and FCB Toronto contributing. The 2019 campaign represents the natural output of that deepened remit — a brand platform rooted in the full customer journey rather than any single touchpoint, and timed with precision to reach business travellers during one of Canada's highest-viewership sports windows.
The creative execution of 'We're in the Business of You' centres on a 60-second television commercial that carries the full emotional and narrative weight of the campaign. The film was directed by Olivier Staub, as documented by campaigncanada.ca, with FCB Montreal art director Sébastien Robillard credited for the visual language of the campaign, also per campaigncanada.ca. Production was handled by Novafilm, as noted by novafilm.com.
The creative approach follows the journey of the business traveller as its organising principle. Rather than showcasing aircraft cabins or amenity kits in isolation, the campaign shows Air Canada's service as something that wraps around the traveller's professional life — present before, during, and after the flight. This structural choice mirrors the campaign's strategic positioning: the airline exists in service of the passenger's goals, not the other way around. The tone is warm but credible, avoiding the aspirational abstraction that can make premium travel advertising feel remote from the actual experience of frequent flyers.
The two 15-second spots distil the campaign's message for digital and broadcast environments where attention is compressed, functioning as reinforcement units rather than standalone narratives. Out-of-home placements in airports and arenas extended the visual system into the physical environments where the target audience actually lives the campaign's promise — waiting at gates, attending business events, moving through the transit infrastructure that Air Canada seeks to define. Across social platforms including Facebook, the campaign maintained message consistency while adapting format to platform context, as referenced by newswire.ca. The integrated architecture demonstrates FCB Montreal's understanding that a business traveller encounters a brand across many surfaces, and that coherence across those surfaces is itself a form of creative craft.
No independently verified performance metrics for 'We're in the Business of You' — such as brand lift figures, recall scores, or booking uplift data — are publicly available for this campaign. What the campaign's structure does make available is a basis for analysing its likely effectiveness against stated objectives.
Air Canada entered the 2019 NHL playoff window with a clear commercial goal: strengthen preference for North America Business Class among frequent business travellers in Canada. The three-week television flight, as confirmed by newswire.ca, was timed to maximise reach within this high-value audience during one of the country's most-watched sporting events. The multi-channel architecture — spanning television, airport and arena out-of-home, digital, print, social media, and sales communications, as documented by adsoftheworld.com — ensured the campaign met its audience across the environments most relevant to their travel behaviour.
Air Canada has received recognition from Skytrax for its service standards, providing external third-party validation of the customer service claims the campaign was built to amplify. The campaign's concept — placing the passenger's needs at the centre of the airline's stated purpose — aligns with the long-term brand-building approach FCB Montreal has pursued across a relationship spanning more than two decades, according to lbbonline.com. Structurally, the campaign is coherent and well-targeted. The Clapboard Score of 60 out of 100 reflects a campaign that executes its brief competently and lands a clear message, while stopping short of the kind of distinctive creative tension that generates lasting brand salience in a crowded travel and leisure category.
'We're in the Business of You' is a 2019 Air Canada campaign created by FCB Montreal. It promotes North America Business Class by positioning the airline around customer service excellence and the seamless travel experience of individual business travellers. The campaign ran in Canada from April through June 2019 across television, out-of-home, digital, print, and social media.
FCB Montreal created the campaign for Air Canada. The agency had held the Air Canada account for more than twenty years by 2017, according to lbbonline.com, with FCB Montreal leading and FCB Toronto also contributing. The 2019 campaign extended an already broad remit covering brand, retail, digital, and loyalty communications.
Olivier Staub directed the television commercial, as documented by campaigncanada.ca. FCB Montreal art director Sébastien Robillard led the visual creative work, also per campaigncanada.ca. Production was handled by Novafilm. The campaign included one 60-second spot and two 15-second versions deployed across broadcast and digital channels in Canada.
Air Canada aligned its three-week television flight with the 2019 NHL playoffs to reach a concentrated audience of commercially engaged Canadian viewers, according to newswire.ca. The playoffs represent one of Canada's highest-viewership sports windows, giving the Business Class campaign efficient access to the frequent business travellers the campaign was designed to influence.
The campaign ran across television, airport and arena out-of-home, digital, print, social media including Facebook, and sales communications, as documented by adsoftheworld.com and newswire.ca. This integrated approach ensured Air Canada's business traveller message appeared across the physical and digital environments most relevant to the target audience's daily professional and travel routines.
The campaign received a Clapboard Score of 60 out of 100. This reflects competent, well-targeted execution of a clear business brief — promoting Air Canada Business Class through a customer-service-led brand position — while indicating the campaign did not achieve the level of distinctive creative tension required for a higher score in the competitive travel and leisure category.
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