Emirates - Karaoke Anthems

Emirates - Karaoke Anthems

The official airline of the 2019 Rugby World Cup (currently in its final stages in Japan) is Emirates.

As part of the sponsorship, the Rugby World Cup social media team has uploaded the anthem of each participating nation onto YouTube and displayed the words underneath, calling it the ‘Emirates Karaoke Anthems.’

The idea of course is pretty simple - sing along by following the words on the screen.

At the same time, the airline itself recruited international match referee Nigel Owens, to film a series of rugby themed ‘rules’ on board Emirates aircraft, and posted them on social media.

These short video clips feature Nigel Owens going up to passengers and blowing his whistle whenever he sees a rule infraction.

The rules include things like ‘avoiding obstruction’ (getting out of your seat in a timely manner while others are trying to watch the IFE system) and ‘always stay on side’ (cue a clip of an Irish passenger falling asleep on a Japanese passenger’s shoulder.)

For us these rugby rules clips really work. By tying certain aspects of airplane etiquette (e.g. squeezing past other passengers while you get out of your seat) to rugby rules, it brings the Emirates sponsorship to life beyond it being a badging exercise.

In the last issue, we featured a number of rugby-themed airline campaigns, which included Emirates painting an A380 in special World Cup livery.