This was published 4 years ago
Unlike their last, Air NZ's new safety video is a crowd-pleaser
By Lorna Thornber
A Journey to Safety will be rolled out on the airline's domestic and international fleets.Credit: Air New Zealand
It takes guts to direct an Air New Zealand safety video, particularly when a recent one was so widely mocked it was soon axed, and Josh Frizzell isn't ashamed to admit the prospect made him nervous.
"Of course," the veteran Kiwi commercial film director says when asked whether he felt any pressure to produce a video that would make his compatriots feel proud as opposed to embarrassed.
"There's a lot riding on it. Part of it is that people are forced to watch it and therefore everyone has an opinion. But I could definitely see something in the idea. I thought there were certain ways we could negotiate the narrative to make it beautiful and keep it fun."
'A Journey to Safety' aims to highlight the plight of NZ's threatened species.Credit: Air New Zealand
The resulting video, A Journey to Safety, to be rolled out on the airline's domestic and international fleets from Friday, is a very different beast to its much-derided predecessor, in subject matter and tone.
It's Kiwi Safety featured local musicians and dancers making like American rappers to the tune of the distinctly non-Kiwi It's Tricky. A Journey to Safetyattempts to shine a light on the plight of New Zealand's threatened native birds through the story of a young girl trying to find a lost takahē a forever home.
To me, Frizzell's video is a bit like a shortened, Nu Zillundified version of The Wizard of Oz. A young girl named Janey, played by local actress Lily Roebeck, pretends she's taking her toys on a trip in her aircraft-shaped tree house. Looking down the hatch to find Mr T, the lost takahē (ie her Toto), she imagines taking him on a journey through some of New Zealand's most magical scenery to find him a suitable home, with options including the Murchison Mountains in Fiordland, Tiritiri Matangi in the Hauraki Gulf and Waikato wildlife sanctuary Maungatautari Mountain.
En route, her toys come to life. But in place of the scarecrow, tin man and lion who accompany Dorothy, Janey is joined by a larger-than-life robot, furry green man and two Air New Zealand flight attendants.
The message is worthy - that our native birds need our help - and Roebuck, with her cutoff denim dungarees, gumboots and wide-eyed Kiwi kid charm - is hard not to like. As is Mr T - a ball of bright blue and green feathers with long, skinny legs and amusingly oversized feet.
As Frizzell says, "you'd have to be pretty cynical to hate it", acknowledging that the team was on the "charm offensive" with the new video.
"They're universally hated and loved these things. Air New Zealand is such a big brand here, people feel like the videos should represent New Zealand. There's that sense of ownership."
Reading the online comments on It's Kiwi Safety, it seems it was almost universally hated. The criticism was so heavy, weighed down further by the likes of Breakfast host Hayley Holt labelling it "embarrassing", that Air New Zealand pulled it just three months after its launch.
The airline appeared to acknowledge the video it had predicted would be "a blockbuster' had failed miserably in a tongue-in-cheek job ad for a head of safety videos which appeared about a month after the rap vid was replaced with an old one starring Rachel Hunter.
"Following the phenomenal success of our latest video It's Kiwi Safety (just don't read the comments online) we're looking for someone to lead our team in creating our next crowd-pleasing safety demonstration," the ad read.
Frizzell, who had directed two safety videos for the national carrier before, didn't reply to the ad (they approached him), but was more than happy to accept the challenge.
"It's a tough beast to tackle because at some point in the clip the oxygen masks have to come down and the seatbelts click. The challenge was to make something hard to hate."
Not that Frizzell is any stranger to courting controversy. His previous videos for the airline - one featuring a weasel-like puppet that recorded a rap with Snoop Dogg and hung out with Lindsay Lohan and Paul Henry (Rico) and another starring scantily-clad Sports Illustrated models (Safety in Paradise) - both divided public opinion. The former was accused of being sleezy and the latter sexist.
It's much harder to knock Air New Zealand for highlighting the plight of our native birds. Particularly when they're actually doing a fair bit about it. Working in partnership with the Department of Conservation since 2012, the airline has transported more than 3200 threatened species to safe havens, paid for pest traps across the country, and supported scientific research within New Zealand's marine reserves.
Air New Zealand general manager global brand and content marketing Jodi Williams says of the new video: "While it's lighthearted on the surface, it conveys a really important message… Our safety videos have collectively generated more than 180 million views over the past decade, so what better medium to shine a spotlight on New Zealand's biodiversity crisis."
And it really is a crisis, DOC threatened species ambassador Nicola Toki says.
"The reality is, a huge number of our species are on the fast track to extinction. We've already lost 50 species of birds since humans arrived in New Zealand and each year up to 25 million native birds are killed by introduced predators.
"Protecting our native taonga is a massive challenge, but one all Kiwis and businesses can be part of by doing things like purchasing backyard traps and getting behind their local community groups."
If it makes more of us do so, then surely it's a job well done on Air New Zealand's part.
"I'm glad to have been a part of it," Frizzell says. "I just hope New Zealand likes it."
Sign up for the Traveller newsletter
The latest travel news, tips and inspiration delivered to your inbox. Sign up now.