Singapore Airlines launched its brand campaign ‘Welcome to World Class’ over a year ago and I’m still thinking about it. With 43M views on YouTube apparently other people are too. I heard it on the radio in my car and without the help of any enhancing visuals it captured and soothed my frazzled brain during the abrupt transition from work to the school pick up.

‘What makes us who we are if not the way we experience the world?’ it asks, immediately evoking the plural. It scoops us up and plonks us, firmly but gently, into the seat of the collective unconscious and together we take a ride through 90 beautiful seconds of uplifting exploration regardless of whether we’re aboard an aeroplane adventure bound.

Everything feels relatable. Tapping into fundamental concepts of belonging and shared encounters, hospitality and compassion, the very act of storytelling itself, making the personal universal, are what make this anything but an advert. Even breaking the fourth wall at the outset doesn’t stop us investing in the journey of the central character and all those she meets in this narrative.

The audience is taken below the surface of a simple service to the company’s core product – engendering feelings. It’s a genuine offering.  We all want to explore, it’s a shared motivation intrinsic to the human design. We also have choice and agency as individuals and our impact on others and the world, and how these impact us in turn, is unique. Singapore Airlines positions itself at the intersection of both.

The idea isn’t ringfenced within the lofty delights of travel. Consumer solutions with authentic, if not purely altruistic, motives can be a bridge from one way of life to another or create a web of support for the user. The difference between getting a brand proposition message to land elegantly and speaking to an empty auditorium is very, very simple. Recognise need, ignite emotion, add value and unlock potential.

The vignette closes with a simple distinction, between something you can buy, and what you’re buying into. We’re welcomed on board to an inclusive and evolving way of being, an ethos, far beyond the simple transaction of a ticket from A to B. It cleverly reinforces our place in a free-flowing community of humanity, the connection we crave and gives us a path to it.