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How Alaska Airlines Used Mekanism to Win Over California
Alaska Airlines launched 'That's How We Fly' in November 2017, a United States film campaign created with agency Mekanism to reposition the airline among California travelers who associated the brand with glaciers and lumberjacks rather than premium leisure and business travel.
The campaign arrived at a pivotal moment. Alaska Airlines had recently completed its acquisition of Virgin America, inheriting a loyal and design-conscious California customer base that had little prior relationship with the Alaska Airlines brand. Natalie Bowman, managing director of marketing and advertising at Alaska Airlines, confirmed this was the company's first brand campaign on television in California, according to MediaPost. The strategic imperative was clear: close the perception gap before competitors moved to capture displaced Virgin America loyalists.
Five television spots formed the backbone of the campaign: 'Glocal,' 'From San Diego On Up,' 'Power Move,' 'FOMO No Mo',' and a fifth instalment, each targeting a distinct facet of the Alaska Airlines proposition. 'From San Diego On Up' spoke directly to California's geographic breadth, grounding the airline's relevance in a cross-country travel narrative that resonated locally. 'FOMO No Mo'' and 'Power Move' highlighted tangible onboard benefits — specifically in-seat power and free texting and messaging — translating product features into lifestyle language California audiences respond to. 'Glocal' addressed Alaska Airlines' expanding global reach, countering the regional carrier perception head-on.
The media flight ran for six to eight weeks across television, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, per Clapboard. Primary activity concentrated in California, with planned expansion into Washington and Oregon. The campaign's Clapboard Score of 63 out of 100 reflects a strategically coherent brief executed with category-standard craft, delivering a necessary repositioning message rather than a culturally defining moment. The combination of film as the lead medium with social amplification across Meta platforms and YouTube gave the campaign both broadcast reach and the targeted precision needed to speak directly to West Coast leisure and business travellers.
Alaska Airlines carried 26.1 million United States systemwide passengers in 2017, ranking seventh among US carriers, according to IATA. Passenger volume grew 7.0% from 2016, per the same source, a figure that reflects the integration tailwinds from the Virgin America acquisition but also the competitive pressure of operating in one of the world's most contested domestic aviation markets.
In California specifically, the airline faced a brand recognition problem that was qualitative rather than quantitative. Tommy Means, Founder and Executive Creative Director at Mekanism, stated the challenge plainly in MediaPost on November 9, 2017: 'When Californians hear Alaska Airlines they automatically think lumberjacks and glaciers.' That image, harmless in the Pacific Northwest where the brand had deep roots, became a liability in a market that valued cool, connectivity, and cosmopolitan relevance. Virgin America had cultivated exactly those associations, and its customers needed convincing that Alaska Airlines could sustain them.
The competitive landscape amplified the urgency. Southwest Airlines commands significant loyalty among California leisure travellers through price-driven simplicity, while United Airlines holds a structural advantage through its San Francisco and Los Angeles hub operations. Alaska Airlines occupied an awkward middle ground — neither the lowest-cost option nor the most globally networked — which made the brand narrative work essential rather than optional. In the United States travel and leisure category, product parity among mid-tier carriers means perception frequently determines choice, and perception in 2017 was not working in Alaska Airlines' favour among California consumers.
Mekanism's strategic planners Jeremy Daly and John-James Richardson anchored the brief in this insight: Californians needed to see Alaska Airlines as their airline, not a visiting regional carrier. The decision to lead with California-specific creative — naming San Diego, addressing global connectivity — reflected a localisation strategy that treated the state as its own distinct market rather than a subset of a national campaign.
Mekanism built the 'That's How We Fly' creative on a single organising principle: make Alaska Airlines feel like it belongs to California. Each of the five film spots addressed a specific objection or aspiration, creating a modular campaign architecture that could be deployed across television and social platforms without losing coherence.
Tommy Means served as Executive Creative Director, with Hart Rusen, Laura Wimer, Andy Corbett, and David Wittman as Creative Directors, according to Clapboard. Junior Copywriter Caroline Johnson contributed to the copy team, while Head of Production Kati Haberstock oversaw production, with producers Megan Ubovich, Kara Bello, and Joe listed in the credits on file with Clapboard. Strategic Planners Jeremy Daly and John-James Richardson shaped the consumer insight that drove the brief, and Agency President Jason Harris provided executive oversight.
The spot-level creative decisions reveal considered thinking. 'FOMO No Mo'' and 'Power Move' chose to foreground product utility — in-seat power, free texting and messaging — but rendered those features in the vocabulary of California lifestyle rather than airline specification language. This is a meaningful creative choice: functional benefits presented through an aspirational register tend to outperform pure feature advertising in the leisure travel category, where emotional resonance drives consideration. 'From San Diego On Up' made geography itself the creative asset, using California's north-south identity tensions as a connective thread.
'Glocal' tackled the most abstract challenge — correcting the regional carrier misconception — by literalising the tension between local identity and global ambition in its title and execution. The word 'Glocal' functions as a piece of brand shorthand, the kind of compressed idea that works particularly well on social platforms where attention is short and the hook must arrive immediately. Across the five films, the campaign maintained tonal consistency while varying its argument, a discipline that reflects well-managed creative direction across a multi-spot production.
No verified performance data for 'That's How We Fly' is publicly available in terms of brand lift, recall scores, or conversion metrics. What the public record does confirm, per Clapboard and MediaPost, is the campaign's structural positioning as Alaska Airlines' first brand television campaign in California — a milestone that establishes a baseline rather than a measurable outcome.
Structurally, the campaign demonstrates several effectiveness indicators. A six-to-eight week media flight across television, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube in the United States represents a sustained enough presence to build awareness rather than merely generate impressions. The decision to deploy five distinct spots rather than a single hero film maximised platform-specific relevance: longer-form content for connected television and YouTube, shorter and punchier executions suited to Facebook and Instagram feeds.
The timing aligned with post-merger integration windows. Alaska Airlines' passenger volume grew 7.0% in 2017, according to IATA, and a brand campaign targeting the airline's newest and most sceptical market — California — during this growth phase represents sound strategic deployment of advertising investment. The campaign's Clapboard Score of 63 out of 100 reflects a well-briefed, competently executed repositioning effort that fulfilled a clear business need, even if the creative ambition did not reach beyond the category's established conventions. For a first brand television campaign in a critical market, the structural logic is sound. The greater challenge, as with all repositioning campaigns, is whether a six-to-eight week flight generates durable perception change or temporary awareness that fades without sustained investment.
'That's How We Fly' was Alaska Airlines' first brand television campaign in California, launched in November 2017 with agency Mekanism. It aimed to reposition the airline among California travellers who associated the brand with the Pacific Northwest rather than modern leisure and business travel, following Alaska Airlines' acquisition of Virgin America.
Mekanism created 'That's How We Fly' for Alaska Airlines in 2017. Tommy Means served as Executive Creative Director, with Hart Rusen, Laura Wimer, Andy Corbett, and David Wittman as Creative Directors. Agency President Jason Harris provided executive leadership on the account, according to Clapboard.
The campaign included five television spots: 'Glocal,' 'From San Diego On Up,' 'Power Move,' 'FOMO No Mo',' and a fifth instalment, per Clapboard. Each spot addressed a distinct aspect of Alaska Airlines' proposition, from onboard connectivity benefits to the airline's global reach and California travel relevance.
Alaska Airlines targeted California after acquiring Virgin America, whose loyal California customer base had limited familiarity with the Alaska Airlines brand. As Mekanism's Tommy Means noted in MediaPost, Californians associated Alaska Airlines with lumberjacks and glaciers, making a targeted brand campaign in the United States' most competitive leisure travel market essential.
The campaign ran across television, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube over a six-to-eight week flight, according to Clapboard. Primary geographic focus was California, with planned activity in Washington and Oregon. The multi-channel approach combined broadcast reach with the targeted precision needed for West Coast leisure and business travel audiences.
The Alaska Airlines 'That's How We Fly' campaign holds a Clapboard Score of 63 out of 100. The score reflects a strategically coherent repositioning brief executed with category-standard craft, fulfilling a clear post-merger business need in the California market without reaching beyond the travel category's established creative conventions.
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