Spirit Airlines
Flying on the Edge: Spirit Airlines’ Bold Reinvention of Affordable Travel
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From haters to high flyers: transforming Spirit Airlines with fearless branding
OVERVIEW:
When Spirit Airlines decided to lean into its “no-frills, all-thrills” identity, they went all in—carry-ons optional. The mission? Transform Spirit into the loud, cheeky defender of budget travel with an unapologetically transparent message. And transparent, it was. Enter the Bare Fare campaign, a marketing masterstroke that embraced honesty and humor, turning “you-get-what-you-pay-for” into a badge of honor.
My role in this transformation was hands-on and all-in. From leading design and art direction to crafting sly social media content that packed as much punch as Spirit’s legroom (well, almost), every detail was designed to connect with Spirit’s core audience—younger, thrifty travelers chasing value without the fluff. The website became the crown jewel of this witty reinvention, with a full redesign and UX/UI strategies to make booking easy, intuitive, and maybe even fun (yes, fun).
Through captivating visual and print designs, I helped the Bare Fare campaign shine bright yellow, keeping Spirit’s message crystal-clear across every touchpoint. Want low fares? You got it. Want a seat that reclines? That’s extra! By pivoting into this bold tone of voice, Spirit became more than an airline—it became the cool kid in the skies, high-fiving travelers for saving a buck and owning it.
From the playful campaigns to a website that didn’t just look good but worked smarter, Spirit Airlines’ brand got the refresh it deserved—proof that you don’t need first-class perks to be unforgettable.
KEY ACHIEVMENTS
READ TIME:
6 Minutes (approx)
CLIENT:
Spirit Airlines
INDUSTRY:
Travel / Hospitality
BASED OUT OF:
Miramar, FL, U.S.A
PROJECT TYPE:
- Digital Marketing
- Web Design
- Email Design
MY ROLE(s):
- Creative Direction
- Branding
- Digital Marketing
- Illustration + Design
- Motion Graphics
- Video Editing
- Web Design
Spirit launched but never told passengers how and why they were different. While Wall Street loved the new model, travelers made it well known that they hated the airline.
DISCOVERY
Creating risqué & playful campaigns
Spirit wanted to ensure that brand awareness was everywhere, from in-person airport experiences, to company swag, and their website to the suggestive emails in their inbox. As part of a larger brand and design team, I supported Spirit’s new brand and marketing strategy initiatives and their brand ambassadors by designing and illustrating new fun and engaging creative designs that spoke to the new demographic of travelers, and with a little bit of spunk.
The team positioned the airline to be positively provocative with a simple curriculum that defined the brand: With Spirit, your fare only covers your ass + gas. Everything else is extra.
THE STRATEGY
Total “un-airline” branding from planes to flight attendant uniforms to even barf bags. People are still talking about this airline, but now they’re talking truth.
Spirit needed to improve its reputation and educate customers on their unique way of flying. They needed to own the “BIG IDEA” and become more transparent to achieve long-term success. The Bare Fare campaign took risks to embrace the negativity, hug the haters, all to create millions of free impressions which was achieved through provocative content.
Capitalizing on current events such as the election, top television shows, and yes, even good o’ Santa Clause, Spirit took POP Culture and made it their mainstream marketing “b@%$&”. Controversially, Spirit made it known that they will not only push your flight comforts to the limits with limited leg room, but also how far they could push buttons to make their point. With this strategy in mind, the global brand team and I rebranded every touch point with as much lude content as we could all to send a simple yet strong message: With Spirit, you sacrifice your comforts to save money. That is the consequence of being a “cheap ass”. To accomplish this, we embraced the hate, made jokes about ourselves and everyone else about air travel, air sickness bags became sharable brand stories and even the entire fleet of aircrafts became flying billboards.
CAMPAIGN: EMBRACE THE HATE
Haters gonna hate, hate, hate – so we shook it off, gave away free miles, and asked for more.
While I can’t take credit for this campaign idea, it was brilliant in my opinion. Spirit was incredible when it came to these strategies, and to be honest, I really enjoyed playing offense with the team and helped by bringing this one to life. With all the negative publicity rolling in about the airlines business model, traveler flight experiences and extra fees, the team, being the fun bunch of creatives they are decided to capitalize and shake off all that negativity. Collaboratively, I helped by designing a micro-site landing page that would allow consumers and users to not only submit negative feedback, but be rewarded through free airlines miles at the same time for doing so. The design also showcased comedic puns and teased other airlines by showcasing live data as it came flooding in.
SUCCESS AND RESULTS
While not the most appropriate and conventional marketing tactics for consumers, Spirit to a lot of risks to boost engagement and sales. And it paid off… BIG TIME!
KEY ACHIEVEMENTS:
Helping Spirit stay on top of its game with visual design and web layout updates.
The global digital transformation of the Spirit brand, the web design portion was a beast in itself and overall was an undertaking. Working along side the team, I contributed a number of landing page redesigns and branded visual updates and graphic creations over the years that helped the site migrate from out-dated to a newer and more modern visual aesthetic.
UX and strategic planning was critical as we wanted to make it easier to navigate the website so users and travelers could quickly get access to flight and promotional information they needed while enjoying the fun facts and branding along the way. Through countless user interviews, focus groups and new journey targets, we were able to slowly, but surely get the Spirit site up to snuff, ensuring we hit all the focus points and ensured each and every traveler got the point.
WHAT'S NEXT?
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