Emirates airline commercial "You get so much more in Emirates Economy" gets hate due to mixed couples (2020)

The airline Emirates are touting their selling points that you get "so much more" with them, like free wifi and entertainment. Full disclosure, the only thing I dislike about this airline is those oversized logos on my favourite football teams kit. Ugh.

Flavours from around the world. Award-winning service from cabin crew. Over 4,000 channels of inflight entertainment. Live sport at 40,000 feet. Free Wi-Fi on board. Free games and toys for kids. You get so much more in Emirates Economy. Fly Emirates, Fly Better.

Seems a really simple and uncontroversial selling point, I mean who dislikes free Wifi? That is not what people dislike about the ad, which received an onslaught of negative comments on Youtube until the airline wised up and turned comments off, it's the casting. 

The cute young actress does just fine as the spokesperson touting what everyone in her family likes about Emirates, but just like the 2013 Cheerios girl, it's soon revealed that she is mixed race. To top it off, her uncle has a mixed-race family as well. It is as if the casting went out of their way to cast as a diverse a group as possible, to check off all possible central casting types, and that is what is suddenly made a super-safe client read style ad, suddenly controversial. Like the SAS ad last week, which was touting travel as a source of inspiration, the execution offends viewers, though hopefully not enough to warrant another bomb threat. It is truly bizarre to think that opinions have polarized so much that ads now get bomb threats, but here we are. Emirates has not only shut off the comments to the ad, but also reset the like/dislike ratio. 

Ad agency: Emirates in-house

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