Values and principles define us

There are few joys involved in regular long haul economy class travel for business. The airport security lottery (is it shoes off today?), immigration queues and lengthy waits in faceless airports (filled with fancy shops that sell nothing I ever seem to need).

The modern seat-back entertainment system has certainly made such travel more bearable – but even these systems are beset with their own unique sources of frustration. The tester in me doesn’t have a hard time finding bugs in these systems and the cabin crew regularly resort to the classic “turn it off and turn it back on again” reboot fix.

One such bug I’ve noticed in the Emirates flight tracking system shows the “distance traveled” decreasing as you near your destination, this bug has been there for a couple of years across different plane types in their fleet.

Another source of frustration in these systems is the constant replaying of the same set of adverts before every TV show or movie. A nice exception to the rule was when traveling last year on Cathay Pacific, the exception not being the lack of ads but that one of the ads was so enjoyable to watch.

The ad was for the United Overseas Bank and follows a young boy and his father going to the fair to ride the carousel. It’s a beautifully shot ad with a great message, reinforcing this bank’s brand idea “our principles define us” – check out the Carousel ad. (The bank has another ad with a similar theme, the Vase ad.)

Their general brand advertisement is around the message that “Our values define us” and is again worth a look. It feels like the same agency were responsible for all three of these ads and I really enjoyed them, maybe you will too.

In thinking about both our work and personal interactions, their messages are worth keeping in mind, focusing on honesty, trust and respect. Our values and principles define us.