Now this is how you get great exposure with your company vehicles!

This low cost South African airline has done a magnificant job of branding their airplanes in sensational, attention grabbing graphics.What is illustrates is that there really is no limit to how creatively you can brand your company vehicles these days, no matter how big they may be.
Their fleet of 737 planes are all different, and all very quirky.

These images came to me virally via email, in yet another one of the endless forwards and funnies that you end up getting on a daily basis. I have decided to do a bit of a Wednesday Weird Web Thievery / Branding cross over today as I think that this is a great example of branding and creating brand awareness through new media techniques, but a shocking example of follow through on their website < www.kulula.com > where I could only find 1 image of their planes. I had to thieve the rest from google images.

I did a bit of fact checking and found out more about this company, and got some great images after the read more.

Kulula Air.

This airline was founded in mid 2001, and has positioned itself as a budget airline, offering a no frills, pay-as-you-go service for add ons like food and drinks. Wonder if they followed the Ryan Air model and also imposed charges for the use of the toilets?

Here are some of the images from the viral email of the now famous Flying 101 version.

and some more of the aircraft designs:

and this one is a particular favourite:

Notice how consistant this all is. Very clever. Even with very different designs, these aircraft are all quite easily identified as Kulula Air branded vehicles.

Kulula Air - Marketing.

The marketing department behind this company must be very pleased with themselves. They have done a great job. Not only has the clever design of the aircraft livery made it's way around the world via viral marketing, but they are also engaged in some clever new media marketing techniques as well using traditional marketing mediums.

A recent campaign launched during the recent Football World Cup in Sth Africa is an excellent case study. They used Facebook excellently, and drummed up massive media interest by launching a world cup themed plane, and embarked on a risque ad campaign.

From Wikipedia (fast and easy...< http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kulula.com >)

In 2010, FIFA complained about Kulula's ads describing the airline as the "Unofficial National Carrier of the You-Know-What", and referring to "Not next year, not last year, but somewhere in between." The airline pulled the offending advertisements.

In June 2010 Kulula launched an advertising campaign in the national press, announcing "affordable flights for everybody" except Sepp Blatter (the FIFA President), who was offered a free seat. Its advertisement stated that the offer is valid "for the duration of that thing that is happening right now", obviously referring to the major soccer tournament held in South Africa at the time. Although the Fifa president did not respond, the owner of a Boston terrier allegedly changed the dog’s name to Sepp and took up this offer. On its Facebook page Kulula displayed pictures of the dog Sepp against the background of images of the major soccer event. Its later advertisement states, "It's official. Sepp Blatter flies with us."

Clever clever clever.
love it.