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Air New Zealand Gets Creative
How an airline used IP to engage their audience
Ali Kaltman
August 04, 2024
Brand: Air New Zealand
Campaign: Safety Videos
Read time: 5 minutes
💬 Overview 💬
Hello from 10,000 ft in the air!!
As I write this newsletter on a plane, I’m wondering about the most iconic marketing moves from airlines in the past 10-20 years.
RyanAir’s social presence is a given. Southwest’s jokes are ripe for virality.
But today, I want to dissect the viral nature of Air New Zealand safety videos.
If you haven’t seen them, check them out here.
If you sort their videos by most popular, NONE of them are commercials.
They’re all safety videos.
So how did Air NZ redefine the safety video?
Let’s get into it…
💙 The Branded Moment 💙
14 years ago, Air New Zealand joined YouTube.
They started with a series of promo videos, ads, and itineraries for different destinations, each garnering between 3-100k views.
And then in 2011, they brought in Richard Simmons to perform a new kind of safety video, which got over 3.2M views.
This unlocked a completely new opportunity to excite and engage customers.
Next, they worked with the Hobbit franchise to create a mystical-themed safety video.
The video went so viral it got over 13 MILLION VIEWS and 4,700 comments.
It was so successful that Air NZ created a full trilogy out of Hobbit videos, with the final video entitled The Most Epic Safety Video Ever Made.
The results were outstanding.
💡 Results 💡
The final Hobbit safety video has over 25 million views on YouTube.
Yes… that means that over 25 million people have watched a safety video OFF an airplane.
People from all over the world have tuned in to see these videos.
Other airlines like Southwest and Delta followed suit, working on engaging new audiences with their safety videos too.
I don’t have a ton of data on how these videos influenced ticket sales, but judging from their stock price from 2008 to 2016 (and these videos took place from 2011-2014), it did wonders to the company’s performance.
Air New Zealand Stock Price from 2008-2016
🎬 Take Action 🎬
Take stock of your customer journey and experience.
Is there something routine you have to do that feels boring?
An ingredient label disclaimer? A routine form for new customers? An onboarding process?
How can you leverage pop culture to make it more interesting? Could you change the experience for everyone so that it becomes enjoyable? Could you set a new standard in your industry?
Raise the bar!
What’s New This Week
One new product I tried this week 👉 Finally tried Sanzo Sparkling Water Yuzu and it was so good.
One new campaign I’m loving 👉 Big fan of the Simone x Fenty moment. It felt so organic.
One podcast to listen to 👉 I listened to the Acquired Nike episode. 4 hours long and every minute was gold.
Brandkeeping
If you enjoyed this newsletter, please forward it on to 3 marketers you know!
And if you have a brand or campaign you want to spotlight, please reply directly to this newsletter.
Let’s chat!
See ya!
Ali
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