Rex Airlines has collaborated with T&Pm Australia to launch a new campaign titled 'An Airfare to Remember'.

The campaign is part of the 'Your Rex' initiative and aims to encourage travellers to reconsider their relationship with rival airlines. The campaign, which goes live today, employs humour and double-entendre in a nod to the a cinematic classic from the Golden Age of Hollywood.

Running over a month, the upper-funnel digital campaign aims to build brand awareness for Rex and its expanding domestic network to major cities, which now includes flights to Perth.

T&Pm Australia is a full-service creative and media agency belonging to the WPP network. "Rex is a brand perfectly suited to wit and satire because it is the quintessential underdog- a scrapper from the bush who moved into big jets and brought competition," said the agency's General Manager, Britt Lippett. "Until Rex came along, fares between Melbourne and Perth for example, hadn't shifted in 10 years and there was little incentive for the major airlines to change, or to improves services."

"But building up a brand when the big two hold 95 percent market share - dwarfing the banks and supermarkets - requires a powerful tool, and we think humour is the best one," said Lippett. "The 'Your Rex' campaign works becuse it invites the consumer in on he joke."

“It’s been well documented that the industry had seen a decline in irreverent ads over the past decade, with brands less willing to take a comedic risk for fear of a pile-on,” said Lippett. “Thankfully, post pandemic, we are seeing a resurgence of humour with the Cannes Lions Awards introducing a humour category this year, recognising its importance and impact.

Lippett said the simplicity and cleverness of the Rex campaign is in stark contrast to the film budget, emotive efforts of its rivals, whose service levels haven’t matched their own ad hype.

“You can have as many doe-eyed choristers singing on the Brooklyn Bridge as you like, but if you cannot get on a flight, get a refund, use your COVID credits or find your bag, it’s a mismatch," said Lippett. “As former AFR columnist, Joe Aston said, ‘Satire has its limits.’