A friend of me recently posted Air New Zealand’s new in-flight safety video on my Facebook. Since I have never flown with them, a legitimate question would be – why? The answer is simple; it is not a regular safety video. Air New Zealand has a record of spicing up their videos for increased attention; in the past the national rugby team and Richard Simmons has starred in their videos. This time the video was Tolkien inspired, relating to the release of the new Hobbit movie. The movie manages to have a great deal of humour in it, and still be informative and professional. I find it interesting how Air New Zealand increases the passenger’s awareness of the safety concerns, Air New Zealand and the movie at the same time by only using a video. This shows how great power social videos has, and explains why they are on the rise.

eMarketer defines social videos as video advertising or content that easily can be shared on social medias, email lists etc., often being longer than traditional advertisements (15-30 seconds). In their recent article “Social Video: The Next Wave in Digital Advertising”, they show that 1,362,9 million social videos where viewed in the first quarter of 2012, compared to 773 in last years first quarter. Social videos has proven to be able to reach out beyond the original target audience, and makes it easier for the marketers to determine the return on investments, compared to traditional advertisements. This is something Air New Zealand is well aware of and is managing successfully. Who would have thought that an In-flight safety video ever would achieve viral success? Not me, but as the rise of social videos continues it probably won’t be long until next unexpected video advertisement pops up on my Facebook.

“An unexpected briefing”: http://youtu.be/cBlRbrB_Gnc