Red, the colour of blood. Blood, the essence of life.

Like blood which contains our DNA which identifies us, Red is the DNA of AirAsia.

I have observed over the years when before AirAsia came to be, advertisements in newspapers were either full-coloured or black and white. Further, the prices of goods and services offered (other than supermarket ads) were often hidden. AND this was an accepted norm by publishers, readers and consumers alike.

Today, turn the pages of our national dailies and like me, you will realize how many ads are RED. Be it holiday packages, banking services…anything! Not only are they red, they all advertise that their pricing starts as low as RMX.99! Gee…if one is not careful, you could end up taking a loan when trying to buy a holiday package!

Your advertisement statement that said “We innovate, others imitate” provoked my line of thought. How true. AirAsia has so much to be proud of for driving change in so many areas including the advertising arena. However, instead of imitating (an admission that they could not come up with a better idea, perhaps?) organizations should take pride in their individualism. People identify with their 5 senses. Are there insufficient colours or combinations of colours, editorial fonts & layouts and ways of presenting your product or services offerings that practically everyone has to “steal” a bit of AirAsia’s brand, fame and success?

Indeed, AirAsia has every right to take pride in its Red Hot Identity!

One of the 'syllabus' under our Flight Attendant Training Program is to bring them for a One Day Visit to a home for the disable people. The visit is to expose them on how to communicate ,getting to know them better and and understand their strength and weaknesses. This later, will assist the Flight Attendants in their daily flying duties.

We choose Rumah Amal Cheshire in Selayang for these visits because the community is small (we could easily mingle with everybody there!) and it has a good mixture of all race and religion. It truly represents the communities in Malaysia.

Before heading there, the Trainees will be briefed on a little bit of 'Rules & Regulations' during the visit. Words that should and shouldn't be used, things that they shouldn't do, etc. However, the most important thing is everybody is advised to have LOTS of FUN!

Last Wednesday, was our 4th visit there. We could see the residents smiled widely upon our arrival. Even though they have not met this batch of Flight Attendants, for them, that's not an issue. Its the RED T-shirt that matters. The residents have accepted us as part of their family members. They always look forward to our visit because for some of them, we are the only 'family' members who regularly visit them.

And it broke our hearts to see their sad faces when we had to say goodbye at the end of the visit.

Look at them smiling in the pics below:

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