Air New Zealand: Nothing to Hide

For fun, Nielsen should test the viewership of pre-flight safety videos. Even with such a captive audience, I’d bet the rating would be no better than the average daytime number on Bravo. But among the airlines, Air New Zealand would have a breakout hit on their hands with their body paint video.

Air New Zealand is a government-owned airline that focuses on Australasia and the South Pacific. They have long-haul service to Asia, Europe, and North America. Her top competitors include Quantas, Virgin Blue, and American Airlines. Last week, they began presenting this video on their domestic flights.

Why does Air New Zealand have a video featuring a pilot and cabin crew in body paint?

Honestly, they are using tricks to get passengers to watch the video, much like Delta Airlines did with this video.

Where Delta chose a beautiful woman, hoping you’d watch. The Kiwi’s are making you watch.

Air New Zealand’s video excels in its integration with the airline’s overall marketing and advertising campaign. Here is a domestic television ad that is part of the campaign.

I’m surprised that airlines have not taken advantage of their captive audience to reinforce the brand until now. But then, when you’re stuffing passengers into a 737-300 at a point just below the Fire Marshall’s recommendation, maybe you don’t want to reinforce your brand (but maybe I am just a cranky flier).

There is no such thing as brand loyalty in a commodities market. Price is king. It drives every decision the consumer makes. For airlines, most of their marketing budget is designed to drive sales . Little, if any, of that budget goes to develop brand loyalty in order to increase repeat business besides mileage rewards programs.  This video, while functional, is the first step toward using pre-flight safety videos as part of the brand development process.

Do you think this technique will become more common among airlines?

Here are other articles I have written on this topic:

• New Television Spot for Appellate Court Judge Mary Schostok
• Joe Birkett Endorses Dan Cronin
• New Television Campaign for Appellate Court Judge Mary Schostok
• Two New Commercials for Dan Cronin
• Back In the Studio
• Catholics Come Home to Chicago, Joliet and Rockford
• New Television Commercial for Dan Cronin
• Shooting and Editing This Week
• Could the Comcast-NBC Deal Spur More M&A?
• Five Chinese Commercials by American Brands