Take a random poll with five people and ask “what December blockbuster are you looking forward to?” Chances are, someone’s going to shriek “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey!” more loudly in your face than you’d ever care for. Unless you’ve been secluded in some sort of Shutter Island-esque asylum, you’ve probably heard the buzz around this anticipated Lord of the Rings prequel.
Full disclaimer: I’m more of a Harry Potter girl, not really into Lord of the Rings but it’s alright.
In E-marketing, we learned about the iceberg analogy for social media. To develop an effective online presence for your brand, you have got to LISTEN. Those who take the time to monitor and listen to their conversations benefit by getting first-hand knowledge of what their audience likes. These brands, they are the ones who find niche marketing campaign ideas which help them hit the headlines.
Today, this medal of honour goes to Air New Zealand, now branded as “The Airline of Middle-earth” (teaching moment: “Middle-earth” is the backdrop for the Lord of the Rings series with many scenes filmed in New Zealand). Partnering up with Warner Bros. Pictures, MGM, and New Line Cinema, Air New Zealand has positioned themselves as the travel passport for those who want to go to Middle-earth.
Recently, creative safety videos have been popping up all over the internet, with Delta Airlines releasing a safety video that included a robot passenger fastening his seat belt. Not to be outdone, Air New Zealand released a new Hobbit inspired safety video, “An Unexpected Briefing #airnzhobbit”. Decked out with elves, dwarves, and everything Lord of the Rings, this melodramatic video clip has garnered nearly 10 million views on Youtube since its release on Halloween. Wanting to measure the impact this viral advert has made on the brand, I clicked into the Air New Zealand Youtube page to discover that it had a total of 22 million video views to date since it was established in 2006. This translates to almost a 100% increase in video hits for Air New Zealand thanks to the sharing of the Hobbit Safety Video. If we measure the amount of Hobbit fans by the number of views it has on its Trailer (uploaded 11 months ago), we’ll discover the most popular video has 21 million views. Assuming that Lord of the Rings fans made up a majority of the views for the safety video, Air New Zealand captured almost half of the fan population within a month. Of course, non-fans probably viewed the safety video as well as a result of its publicity in the advertising community.
As an added kudos, Air New Zealand probably saw the inherent weakness in Youtube comments, and provided a further conversational outlet by embedding a hashtag, #airnzhobbit, into the title to transfer Youtube viewers onto their Twitter page. Just after a 30 second skim on their Twitter profile, I’ve discovered that Air New Zealand has most recently created a Hobbit themed air bridge and baggage carousel. Imagine how much longer I’d stay on their profile if I was a Lord of the Rings fan.
Sure, you might call it milking the goat, but this campaign aligns with Air New Zealand’s point of differentiation perfectly. It’s a winner in my books.
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