American Airlines decides it actually hates the phrase 'win-win'

When a major corporate advertiser proclaims a bit of biz-speak dead, maybe it really is dead, right? Well, let's hope. This latest ad in American Airlines' "We know why you fly" campaign from TM Advertising takes aim at the phrase "win-win," which one road warrior deploys so liberally that a co-worker eventually opts to sit in a separate row. But American's opposition to the bromide seems to have been formulated fairly recently. Last month, in a press release about a partnership with USA Wrestling, Roger Frizzell, vp of corporate communications, noted that it was a "win-win partnership." Frizzell was also quoted in a 2007 Harper's article using the same dreaded phrase. John Hagen, a senior systems analyst and project manager for American, also once praised the adoption of Sybase IQ as a "win-win for us and our customers." Not that we at BrandFreak are casting stones. At the end of the day, this commercial really shows the ability to think outside the box.

—Posted by Todd Wasserman