Southwest Airlines rolling out four weddings and a lot of dance moves in new TV campaign

Did you ever think Southwest Airlines (NYSE: LUV) would totally abandon its wildly unconventional way of doing advertising?

Of course not.

For four decades Dallas-based Southwest was synonymous with outlandish TV spots. The airline only got a little more buttoned down, so to speak, when 18 months or so ago it turned to TBWA/Chiat/Day in Los Angeles to do a brand campaign intended to suggest Southwest had grown up after more than 40 years in the skies.

But not so fast.

Grown up it may be, but starting Sunday, during National Football League game telecasts, Southwest is going to get a little (well a lot really) youthfully corny again in a new ad campaign from GSD&M in Austin, Texas. That's the ad agency that was chiefly responsible for putting the "wacky" in Southwest advertising for decades — before TBWA entered the picture.

I wasn't always a fan of some of the craziness Southwest and GSD&M put forth over the years.

But one thing was certain — all that crazy stuff was a distinctive style in airline advertising. And it made Southwest stand apart from the rest — a fact the airline still prides itself on as it returns to talking emphatically about being an airline with heart.

The new TV spot titled "Four Weddings" introduces viewers to a wedding-goer and dancer par excellence who somehow becomes the center of attention in quick succession at no fewer than four very different wedding receptions.

The pleasure in the spot comes not only from watching all of this young lady's dance moves, but from the many little details that have gone into the composition of each scene. Certainly the best of the four receptions is the one where the young woman is dancing with an even younger partner.