Generation easyJet: Unite Different Reasons to Travel Without Inventing One Traveller

Read the campaign story

Generation easyJet launched as a pan-European campaign in September 2013. The company described different travel purposes, including holidays, visits and business journeys, and used film alongside other media. Contemporary production coverage credits Ninian Doff and Pulse Films. In 2018, the airline explicitly described its Imagine Where We Can Take You work as a new expression of the same idea. Those executions remain one family.

The sources document creative intention and distribution, not proof that the airline made travel affordable or accessible to everyone. Historical route, price, environmental and market-leadership assertions are not adopted here. The word generation is analysed as campaign language, not as evidence of a precise age cohort or a uniform set of customer attitudes. Production credits are kept specific to their respective films.

Editorial interpretation: a service can serve people with different purposes without needing a separate brand for every occasion. The connecting idea must be broad enough to include those purposes yet concrete enough to explain what the organisation contributes. A sequence of varied situations can help, provided the audience still understands the service. Diversity of scenes is not automatically diversity of access, and a shared emotional invitation should not erase practical differences between users.

Editorial interpretation: an enduring platform can move from showing people to showing what they imagine, while retaining the same underlying invitation. The challenge is continuity of meaning rather than repetition of a particular editing technique. A team should test whether the later expression is recognised as belonging to the same offer and whether it creates new expectations that the service cannot meet. Attractive possibility should lead to usable information rather than an assumption that aspiration settles the decision.

Group people by the task without reducing them to a stereotype

Start with the reasons people might use the service and the questions each reason creates. A small organisation can write several fictional scenarios without assigning personality traits to an age, income or cultural group. Use the scenarios to discover which information is shared and which needs a separate explanation. Ask viewers what each person is trying to do. If they remember only a visual stereotype, the scene is not doing the intended work. The common brand idea should connect purposes while leaving people free to differ in preferences, constraints and willingness to participate.

Keep the shared invitation compatible with different constraints

A message about possibility can become exclusionary if it assumes everyone has the same money, time, mobility or permission to act. Make practical conditions easy to find and avoid moralising a decision not to use the service. A small venue can explain several ways to participate, including a low-effort information route. Test the invitation with scenarios in which the offer is unsuitable as well as suitable. An accurate decision to decline is not a communication failure. It may show that the campaign helps people understand the offer rather than merely increasing enthusiasm.

Assess a platform through changes in expression

Write the central audience meaning in plain language, then compare several executions against it. Check what remains recognisable when the setting, tone or medium changes. A small team can use rough storyboards before investing in production, asking readers to connect each version to the same service description. Do not require identical imagery merely to preserve consistency. Equally, do not call unrelated work a platform simply because it carries the same logo. The test is whether variation deepens or clarifies a coherent invitation while keeping the essential conditions understandable.

A small test for another brief

Proposed adaptation: a fictional community venue could compare a poster organised around three different visit purposes with a single generic welcome poster. Both lead to the same paper information sheet. Ask consenting adults to select an appropriate route for invented scenarios, including one where the venue cannot meet the visitor’s needs. No actual travel or booking is proposed.

Measure service recognition, correct scenario routing and awareness of limits. Separate emotional appeal from actual affordability, accessibility or demand, and inspect whether any scenario is consistently misunderstood.

Stop if the concept relies on demographic stereotypes, hides conditions or implies that participation is a measure of ambition or social worth.

• Use original illustrations and fictional adult visitors.
• Keep access information, prices and limits identical across concepts.
• Offer a text-only version and a clear unsuitable-option response.