Air All Blacks - Air New Zealand

When Air New Zealand released its last safety video, ‘It’s Kiwi Safety’, at the end of last year, we questioned whether after years of cranking out hit after safety video hit, we had fnally reached peak safety video.

And we weren’t alone in pointing out that the rap themed video didn’t really look or feel like a safety video, the airline itself withdrew it (though it cited the need to promote a new domestic campaign as the reason).

On August 1st, Air New Zealand came out with its latest offering. Ostensibly it has a rugby theme, around the New Zealand national team, the ‘All Blacks’ (who already appeared in an earlier safety video). This comes as the All Blacks prepare for the Rugby World Cup, which is due to kick off in Japan in September.

In particular, the video opens with the airline announcing that as the country is so rugby mad, it will be changing its name to ‘Air All Blacks.’

We then see a bunch of All Blacks players and coaches, some Kiwi children as well as Air NZ crew around a big table, after which Rick Hoffman, best known from the TV series Suits, is beamed in via a holographic image.

The airline makes a joke at its own expense, with Hoffman proclaiming that as the airline’s lawyer he’s there to advise the ‘crazy Kiwis’ against any kind of rapping or complicated safety demonstrations.

The rest of the video involves the airline’s board thinking of what their new safety video should look like. Different groups of people, from kids, to All Blacks players, to fans then each act out a part of the safety demonstration.

Unlike ‘It’s Kiwi Safety’, the media reaction so far to ‘Air All Blacks’ seems to be largely positive. Mashable talks about ‘Air New Zealand’s cheeky new safety video’, while the New Zealand Herald says it is a return to form after last year’s ‘train wreck.’

However, on the TV New Zealand website, former Saatchi & Saatchi MD Mike Hutcheson called it ‘over the top’, saying “I felt it was laying it on with a trowel, and quite an extravagant way of telling me a simple story. It was big budget for sure, and I’d like to think there were better ways to spend that money.”

In response, the airline’s general manager of global brand and content, Jodi Williams said that it “still drives great value for us”, and helps the airline cut through in markets such as the US, where a standard national ad buy would indeed eat up a lot of budget.

We’d agree that $ for $, a well made safety video can still get great cut through, and can be a great marketing tool.

However, our frst impression was that the video lacks the clear linear narrative that earlier Air New Zealand safety videos had. Instead it jumps about (e.g. from Rick Hoffman, to All Black All Stars, to fans).

This could be quite confusing for someone on board to follow, so in that sense Mike Hutcheson is right, arguably Air New Zealand over complicated what should be quite a simple message.