In a fellow UBC student blog post, Georgia Sakurai elaborates on Virgin America’s new safety video by saying ‘Sass sells’. She draws attention to the versatility Virgin’s video, mentioning how Virgin was able to get the video across multiple platforms like YouTube in addition to their in-flight movie screens. She celebrates Virgin’s ability to take something boring or redundant and turn it into entertainment for their customers.
While the new take on a boring safety video is clever, Georgia’s analysis of it is a bit under developed. She discusses ‘sass’ as if it’s a new technique, and is a hot commodity in the marketing world.
In reality, such against-the-grain methods have been commonplace for quite some time. Advertisements making gags of previous advertisements have been a tool to draw attention to products since the 60s. Recent examples that come to mind are Geico’s bait-and-switch style from the early 2000s, where a normal looking advertisement would come on and the line ‘I have fantastic news though, I just saved a bunch of money by switching to Geico” would suddenly be thrown into the script. Another example is Adidas commercial in which a majestic looking runner is portrayed with ‘this is Nike, and the man following with him wearing the 50-pound camera is wearing Adidas”.
These witty ads reward potential consumers for being able to see through more stereo typical advertisements with humor. In doing so, the company advertising appeals to the viewers intellect, establishing a more intimate connection in being able to condescend the other advertisements. In Virgin’s case, they’re poking fun at how boring a normal instructional safety video might be.
Another thing to note on Sakurai’s analysis is that she underestimates how niche such a video is. While it can be publicized via various forms of media, she fails to note that the advertisement only applies to those about to get on a plane. Maybe for the weathered traveler this is a common experience, but to the everyday man or woman air travel is an uncommon nuisance. Sure, it bodes well that Virgin can poke fun at itself, but the video is five minutes long and holding a customers attention for that long, even prior to lift off, is a challenge.
References:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=DtyfiPIHsIg