British Caledonian Airlines were around in the 70’s & 80’s. Originally the Scottish charter airline Caledonian airlines, at the time Britain’s second largest, wholly privately owned airline, took over British United Airways, at the time the largest independent British airline. The takeover enabled Caledonian to become a scheduled airline and with time the merged entity British Caledonian (or BCal) became Britain’s foremost independent, international scheduled airline.
Bcal fell apart in the late 80’s and was essentially absorbed into British Airways but it wasn’t before creating a brilliant marketing campaign. The cornerstone of their strategy came from their “second force” heritage – working off the core proposition of “We never forget you have a choice“.
In the 70’s their campaigns were fairly standard airline ads but there was a hint of the sense of humor which would typify their campaigns in the 80’s.
In 1982, facing major problems due to the Falklands War, British Caledonian launched a major new campaign featuring the jingle “I wish they all could B Caledonian girls” – which at the time created quite a fuss is relatively conservative Great Britain.
