Air New Zealand: Communicating to keep the Sky Safe and Spicing Up Safety Demos

I fly quite often and it is the law for airlines to present a safety presentation prior to take off. Sometimes it is a pre recorded or rehearsed demonstration done by the cabin crew and it may be a video that is presented on your inflight entertainment screen. I typically find these presentations to be quite bland and boring. When I look around the cabin, I don’t even see the attention of other passengers and they typically look out the window or read the inflight magazine during the pre departure safety presentation.

For the safety of passengers on board, it really is at the best interest for everyone to follow and comply with safety procedures but your limited when you cannot force everyone to listen to the demonstration. As a result, the sender is not effectively delivered the message to the receiver. In this case, the sender is the airline or government body regulating the procedures and the receiver is the passenger. Recently, Air New Zealand completely changed their approach to inflight safety. Air New Zealand is a small airline in the South Pacific. Regardless of their size, they started a new advertising campaign called the “Bare Essentials”. It was given the name to promote bare bottom fares with no extra addition on prices. The commercial used humour appeal as every employee was completely naked but their company uniform was painted on them. In addition to the ad, the body painted cabin crew participated in a new company safety video. The video was very popular and is a great example of changing your message to attract viewers even during typically bland and regular events.

Photo Taken from the "Lord of the Rings" themed demo

Air New Zealand could have stopped with this viral campaign but they added variety to their safety videos. Keeping the same safety demo video could have caused negative perception as repetitive viewing and repetition for frequent flyer viewing may eventually burnout the message over time. Instead, the airline added new videos to the portfolio that featured videos not just with humour appeal but also with pop culture and reliable sources. Air New Zealand launched a Lord of the Rings themed video, All Blacks football video, workout themed video featuring Richard Simmons, retirement home video featuring Betty White and recently a Men in Black themed video.

Photo taken from Delta Airlines new 80's themed safety video

            While Air New Zealand pioneered the trend, Delta Airlines followed and started launching safety demonstration videos with humour appeal. I think that it is important to communicate safety. Typically demonstrations are very useful in saving lives. Aviation is typically safe but they are always unlikely rare instances where the difference of attention to procedures can make a world of difference.