There are some airline names that we don’t ever really pretend to understand, such as Peach, Wizzair or Mango Airlines, but this latest food stuff name really takes the biscuit. Vanilla Air, the low cost outfit of ANA (sitting alongside sister airline Peach) has just been launched, looking more like the logo of a fabric conditioner than an airline. It’s easy to criticise when speaking from outside the market, but even in Japan’s ever increasingly cool brand conscious image, this name and logo sadly lives up to it’s meaning.
Whilst the airline has yet to showcase their livery, you can most likely expect soft, cute and overly simple graphics to adorn the planes, and looking at the ‘lightness’ of the brand, expect a very white aircraft.
We don’t expect much from this brand, and from the press announcement, it seems even lower cost than Southwest or a certain Irish Airline, with the logo presented on a powerpoint slide show and some pieces of card in a very ‘vanilla’ coloured room.
“We chose vanilla as our brand name because it is popular and loved by everyone in the world,” the airline’s president Tomonori Ishii told reporters in Tokyo. “I think it is a very cute name.” From our perspective, the word ‘loved’ I think is perhaps a little overplayed, instead, the idea of Vanilla gives every one a shrug of their shoulders whilst sighing to themselves “Meh.” We hope for this brand’s sake, they decide to add some other flavours to help liven up their brand, when they announce more about the outfit later this year.
TheDesignAir 
Of course, there is a lot of stuff in my fridge I love ..but come on what next? Chocolate Air? Strawberry Airlines?..Are airline managers reaching such low concern about their brand and demonstrate such poor level with creativite strategy going to downgrade to reach to that point of no return ? This is a cute word but absolutly meaningless for an airline morevover based in Japan… They just opt for a funny name for the good sake of name differenciation – Not the best way to create a brand winner – Just hope they will not get next the great idea to spray vanilla fragrance onboard…or…its gone switch fast to Puke Air !
As a South African, Mango was a play on words “man go” so in a sense it was a clever marketing name. Couple it together with a mango looking plane, it works.
Peach on the other hand, well does not look like a peach at all, more like a plum or a grape. And I would also like to know the meaning or reasoning behind the name.
And are we looking at a Vanilla looking ie plain livery? I hope not…