Jonathan Gabay’s brand communications blog

Brand UK and the case of the Brains drain

Posted Wednesday 21, May 2008 by: admin

Eight weeks after the Terminal Five brand fiasco I paid a return visit to the multi million pound shed in Heathrow to see how things have improved. I was flying to Newcastle with BA.

My sat-nav didn’t allow for T5 on the map and apart from two signs one mile from the airport, there were no actually clues as to where anything was. Running late I eventually uncovered T5 Business Parking only to discover from the parking attendant that BAA hadn’t actually planned enough spaces for business parkers so I had to park the car in an unofficial spot next to a tree. Worried about my car’s safety but even more concerned about catching my flight in time, I hailed a courtesy bus to the terminal.

Apart from the additional ten minutes it takes for aircraft to get from T5 to the runway (something they don’t tell people about) the rest of the journey was fine.

Staying overnight in Newcastle to deliver a talk the following morning, I settled into my Hilton room to watch a bit of telly. One commercial caught my eye: Drench Mineral water. It showed one of my childhood favourite characters, Brains from Thunderbirds dancing in the style of a raver. Whilst I guess this could be considered funny, deep down I felt gutted. Here was Brains, the cleverest guy in the whole international rescuing business, selling out to a mineral water company to perform like a limp puppet on a jangly string. (What happened to respect at least towards all the countless numbers throughout the world who owed him a debt of gratitude?)

The following day I caught my flight back to T5. Again the flight was pretty uneventful. Most of the flight I read the newspaper full of stories of how industry was on the brink of collapsing and crunching.

Once we landed back in Heathrow, the Captain addressed the passengers. Thanking us for travelling with BA, he announced that unfortunately there wasn’t any space left for us in the domestic landing area so we would have to taxi on further to the international arrivals. (I thought this was odd, as BA hadn’t as yet transferred all their flights from T3 and T4).

Five minutes later he was back on the Tannoy again. “Sorry ladies and gentlemen. Once again thank you so very much for flying British Airways. It was such a pleasure having you. Now there is just one niggly issue to warned you about: T5 are telling us that they cant let anyone off the flight because of issues to do with biometrics”.

‘Biometrics’? Apparently BAA’s highly sophisticated biometrics system to help detect illegal immigrants was on the blink. But hold on… We just flew in from Newcastle – not New Delhi…

A loud group of Americans on the plane found the whole thing hilarious. One said in a loud voice: “ Gee these Brits at T5 must have memory loss. When they least expect it airplanes pop out of nowhere asking for a place to land. ‘Poof’ there comes another… and another… where do all these planes come from?”

A passenger laughed. I grimaced.

The captain got back on the Tannoy…

“Ah yes, hello again. So sorry ladies and gentlemen. There is now another gremlin in the works. T5 now wants us to disembark using stairs rather than the gangway. However they have informed us that they don’t have any insurance to cover passengers leaving from the front of the aircraft via stairs. So you’ll all have to leave from the back exit in groups of no more than thirty as they only have one bus available and it would cause a little bit of a pile up on the runway.”

On the bus everyone, except the Americans looked fed up.

Eventually I made my way back to the car. Driving away from T5 with the magnificent shed in my rear-view mirror I wondered if there was anyone left in the country who had the gumption to fix brand UK, at which point I remembered poor old Brains who was otherwise preoccupied dancing a merry jig that had little reason and questionable rhyme.

Jonathan Gabay

www.brandforensics.co.uk

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