Air New Zealand Air Points - New AirNZ Aussie TV ad available online

For those that are interested, you can find the new AirNZ TV ad (the first created specifically for the Aussie market since the Ansett debacle) on the Australian edition of the website here:
http://www.airnz.com.au/aboutus/mediacentre/default.htm

It stars Peter FitzSimons - I've never heard of him but apparently he's a well-known ex-Wallaby and now media personality. This ad is the first of several showcasing different NZ locations.

I have to say I'm not all that impressed by it. I like the jetboats forming the Koru symbol, but most of the rest seems a little bit uninspired. What do you lot think?

I guess it helps to be familiar with Peter Fitzsimmons. He is in several newspaper columns and also on telly from time to time over here and without fail will disparage/downplay the all blacks or NZ in general. My take is the ad is playing to this, but may be too subtle (for aussies ;) )

Absolutely agree that you have to know Fitzsimmons to appreciate this ad, and in fact this makes it even more clever - that such a partisan figure even agreed to let himself be sent up as a dopey Aussie!

But presumably this particular ad would only be showcased in line with fares to Queenstown?

I feel neutral about it. It certainly doesn't make me want to jump on a plane to NZ, ...but then maybe I'm biased.

I did get the concept, and the whole trans-Tasman rivalry thing, I just thought that the execution (especially his dialogue) wasn't particularly inspired. I also thought the sauvignon blanc joke fell a bit flat (though it is entirely possible I take my sav blanc a little too seriously! :D ) - it almost makes it sound like they serve French wine on the plane. And the tagline "everything you love about New Zealand" kind of seems to be asking for trouble with an Aussie audience... ;)

As Latitudes said, would it make you want to leap on an AirNZ plane? At the very least it will raise brand awareness, which is of course a good thing - if Aussies are planning a trip to NZ, for most people I suspect the first airline they would think of is Qantas, probably followed by Virgin Blue / Pacific Blue. As for the whole 'kiwi-ness' of the experience, I guess that's how AirNZ is trying to differentiate itself but for the average leisure passenger the real differentiating factors are price and convenience/schedule, so if you can just get the customer to at least look for flights on your website then half the battle is won.

But presumably this particular ad would only be showcased in line with fares to Queenstown?

Apparently this is one of a series of ads. This one is supposed to be about the outdoor activities and adrenaline-pumping extreme sports that NZ is famous for these days (rather than Queenstown specifically) according to the press release, while the next one is to be about "people and cultural attractions of the country".

The more I see this ad the less I like it, however I've heard various people talking about it (not conversations initiated by me) so it is obviously achieving some audience penetration and, more surprisingly, the consensus among all the Aussies seems to be that it's a great ad. Apparently this morning on talkback radio they were discussing it and it got a resounding thumbs up for being funny and clever.

Perhaps they knew what they were doing after all?

The Second Ad in the series is now online for downloading at http://www.airnewzealand.com.au/aboutus/mediacentre/default.htm

Even if people talk about hating it at least the ad has done it's job to show people that Air NZ is there. Theres about 11 airlines now flying between AKL - SYD. That's a lot of airlines for people who don't know much about aviation to choose from.