Emirates recycled an old ad to poke at the Trump laptop ban.

Emirates Airlines Responded to Trump’s Laptop Ban by Updating an Ad Featuring Jennifer Aniston

Emirates Airlines Responded to Trump’s Laptop Ban by Updating an Ad Featuring Jennifer Aniston

Moneybox
A blog about business and economics.
March 21 2017 5:34 PM

Emirates Airlines Responded to Trump’s Laptop Ban by Updating an Ad Featuring Jennifer Aniston

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Who wouldn't want to be on Jen's side?

Emirates.

On Tuesday the Trump administration announced a ban on laptops, tablets, Kindles, and other electronic devices larger than cellphones on flights from 10 Middle Eastern and North African airports on eight non-U.S. airlines. Misguided though the ban might be, most of the affected airlines have so far been fairly quiet about the ban.

So far the only exception is Emirates, the largest carrier in the Middle East. On Tuesday morning, the Dubai-based airline tweeted out an 18-second advertisement featuring Jennifer Aniston with the caption, “Let us entertain you” and a rather topical opening line: “Who needs tablets and laptops anyway?”

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Aniston is then shown holding a console attached to the seat in front of her and sitting with two children. “This thing has so many games and so many movies, it’s crazy,” she says. Aniston may not be the willing face of this friendly jab at Trump administration policy, but her time-tested likability makes her an effective one. Who wouldn't want to be on Jen's side?

On Twitter, users were impressed with the speed with which Emirates put out the ad, but the video actually came from a minute-and-a-half-long October advertisement in which Aniston befriends a boy who ventures into her private suite on the flight. The opening text was evidently slapped onto the clip to capitalize on a newsworthy event—a policy that may have been motivated by the Trump administration’s protectionist instinct and that may have serious business consequences for Emirates and its peers, which thanks to state funding often offer cheaper fares than their American counterparts.

Emirates appears to be the only airline to have seized the moment. On Tuesday afternoon Royal Jordanian Airlines tweeted out basic information to let its customers know it will begin adhering to the ban on March 24. Saudi Arabian Airlines also stuck to the facts.

Otherwise, the other affected airlines—Egypt Air, Etihad Airways, Kuwait Airways, Qatar Airways, Royal Air Maroc, and Turkish Airlines—seemed to focus their social media attention elsewhere. Presumably they spent the day wishing they lived on one of the 99 out of 100 Earths in which Donald Trump is not president.