MEDIA & MARKETING:IN THE year that Aer Lingus celebrates its 75th birthday, it is appropriate that the airline's creative advertising account is flying home to Ireland. In recent years the account has been handled by a London ad agency but now the airline has asked nine Irish agencies to present their credentials.

Aer Lingus is one of Ireland's few iconic brands and the ad agencies pitching for the business face an interesting challenge in devising a brand strategy. For the moment, the airline is playing on the nostalgia theme, with a new TV commercial Doesn't Time Flythat reinforces the brand's enduring heritage.

The airline’s central role in Irish life since the 1930s is being reinforced by below-the-line activity too, such as a book with the same title as the TV ad and an exhibition later this year of Aer Lingus ads through the decades.

In its early years, Aer Lingus’s marketing served a dual purpose: to promote the airline itself, but also to promote Ireland as a tourism destination. The dominant image of Ireland used in promotional material was that depicted by the artist Paul Henry, ie, white cottages, turf stacks and Connemara skies.

In the 1950s, poster and advertising campaigns devised by Sun Advertising embraced concepts from modern art and visual culture to promote the wide range of pursuits available here.

The 1980s heralded big television advertising with emotional impact. One ad devised by Peter Owens depicted a young couple flying to Ireland with happy homecoming smiles as the voice-over reassured them in paternal, honey tones, “You’re home”. The other big ad from that decade was “Look up, it’s Aer Lingus”, with a little girl playing in a field looking up at a green Boeing flying overhead.

Those huggy ads came to an abrupt halt a decade ago as Aer Lingus faced up to the competition from Ryanair. From 2002, the advertising message became “Low Fares, Way Better”, with ad agency Rothco using loud red and yellow designs in the press ads as a call to action to support the online booking drive.

Unlike Ryanair, Aer Lingus retained what Michael O’Leary would regard as frills, such as offering passengers the opportunity to choose their seats. And while Aer Lingus fares are still competitive, its brand offering now isn’t totally centred on cheap flights.

But what does the Aer Lingus brand stand for now? John Fanning, the former adman who lectures in marketing at Smurfit Business School in UCD, observes the genius of O’Leary and Ryanair was to recognise that air travel is no longer glamorous but as commonplace as a bus.

Says Fanning: “Aer Lingus cannot compete with Ryanair on price alone. The opportunity for Aer Lingus is to show that the thought of air travel doesn’t have to make us break out in a cold sweat as we approach the airport.

“It’s terribly important . . . the creative account is coming back to Ireland. Irish ad men and women instinctively know how to sell an Irish airline that bit better. Aer Lingus is often the very first impression foreigners get on their first visit to Ireland, and now more than ever the first impression is crucial.”

The agencies pitching for the account know the main purpose of the airline’s advertising must be to persuade people to treat themselves to a city break. However, Fanning’s view is that the airline also needs to reinforce brand goodwill.

“The iconic television ads of yesteryear cost a lot of money, but perhaps Aer Lingus could look to the little idea of creating radio adverts that capture people’s imagination.”

The next curators of the brand might also bear in mind the observations of Tom Kennedy, who was in charge of promoting Aer Lingus in North America from the 1960s to the 1980s.

“One of the things I always felt about working for Aer Lingus was that all the time you were being a patriot.” On this view, selling the airline and selling Ireland remain indivisible and that’s what consumers expect.