AIR NEW ZEALAND, IT’S KIWI SAFETY

When you think of airline safety videos, you first of all think of Air New Zealand. Though even relatively small carriers like Lebanon’s MEA now produce safety videos that are done as much for marketing as for in-flight safety purposes, Air New Zealand very much pioneered the genre.

As far back as 2012, SimpliFlying CEO and founder Shashank Nigam wrote, “Air New Zealand has taken the same videos and turned them from what people ignored in-flight to something people watch at home on Youtube. Many times over.”

Since then, Air New Zealand has produced one in-flight safety video ‘hit’

after the other. The airline’s so-called ‘epic safety briefings’ have included “The Bear Essentials of Safety” with TV personality Bear Grylls, “Mile High Madness” with 80s sensation Richard Simmons and ‘Safety in Hollywood’ featuring Anna Farris and Rhys Darby.

The latest video, “It’s Kiwi Safety”, is the largest scale safety video the airline has ever produced, featuring a 600-strong cast.

The safety video, takes the form of a rap and is backed by the soundtrack It’s Kiwi a remake of the popular RUN-DMC song It’s Tricky.

While the song is playing, performers, Air New Zealand staff and community groups from across the country rap / say the safety instructions As well as featuring talent from 30 community groups, the video stars Kiwi actor Julian Dennison and local musicians Kings, Theia and Randa.

The video also features surf lifesavers from Dunedin, curlers from Maniototo in Central Otago and the Mosgiel Brass Band. The safety video was filmed at various New Zealand locations in Auckland, Wellington, Dunedin, Balclutha, Hokitika, and Naseby in Central Otago. Finally, Air New Zealanders featured include cabin crew, pilots, engineers, loaders and airline staff from Dunedin Airport.

To celebrate “It’s Kiwi Safety”, Air New Zealand has also released its November Kia Ora inflight magazine with six different covers to showcase a number of the safety video’s stars. This is the first time in the magazine’s history the monthly publication has been released with six different covers.

No doubt about it, “It’s Kiwi Safety” is a really lavish production and watchable. It does a great job of bringing both the sights and faces of New Zealand to life.

But to what extent is it really a safety video? After watching it for the first time, this writer could recall various elements such as when the rappers are in the laundrette, or when the surfers run into the ocean from the beach.

However it was harder from memory to link the different scenes to actual safety information.

Of course, the information is all there, as the transcript to the video shows. However, it just felt like more of a music video produced by Air New Zealand to celebrate its home country, than an actual safety video.

And other commentators agree. Some say that at four and a half minutes, it is too long to hold the viewer’s attention. Other comments have questioned whether non English speakers would be able to follow a rap in a Kiwi accent, as there are few visual cues when it comes to safety.

And forget visual cues, says a blind advocacy group in New Zealand, given the medium of rap, the video will be tough for someone who is sight impaired to follow.

“It’s hard to filter out the safety information from the entertainment”, says Blind Citizens NZ president Dr Jonathan Godfrey, commenting that “there’s a lot of other audio in the background. It’s a busy medium.”

It’s hard to disagree with some of these sentiments, and we wonder whether the starting point was “all these other airlines are encroaching on our turf with cool safety videos, how can we blow them out of the water with something huge.”

While the use of local talent over Hollywood stars is commendable, you could argue that this particular video does cross the line too much from safety to entertainment.

Indeed, in our July edition, we featured a number of safety videos including Air Transat and EL AL, with a guest commentary provided by SimplIFlying’s director of consulting Marco Serusi. While the different videos we featured are creative and watchable, the safety information is still clear in each.

As Marco Serusi pointed out in his commentary, airlines should be wary of

making “videos where the creators work hard to get attention but forget to pass on a message to the viewers.”

Earlier this year, Air New Zealand released a video that similarly provoked a mixed reaction. ‘The World’s Coolest Safety VIdeo’ (which we featured in April) was a beautifully shot video shot in Antarctica produced to support the New Zealand Antarctic Research Institute.

However, some local media coverage was negative as a result of some of the filming having been done near the site of the 1979 crash of Air New Zealand flight 901.