Comments | satsumasalad: Air NZ Ads

satsumasalad

Air NZ Ads

Apr 20, 2007 14:03

The new Air New Zealand ad campaign has been receiving some press attention. Rather belatedly, because when I first saw one of the ads a couple of months ago I was disturbed by it then, and I wasn't the only one, we talked about it at work ( Read more... )

Comments 4

aumtattoo April 20 2007, 02:36:10 UTC

The first time I saw one of those ads I wasn't sure what they were on about... until the logo at the end of course.

The ad with the girl crying who runs out of her house and into the air - that one always reminds me of the flying dreams I still have sometimes, just the running and then being in the air. My tummy does flip-flops when I see it.

I do find the ads disconcerting though.

aumtattoo April 20 2007, 02:38:58 UTC

Oh, and the ads are way too long!

This is funny: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JF667zBA2Dw

anonymous April 20 2007, 23:40:56 UTC

When I first saw them I thought of the Maori belief that souls released from their bodies at death fly to Cape Reinga and there jump to the next world (I think). At school I wrote a short story based on this idea, which I'd picked up from a NZ Geographic, so I may have hopelessly mangled the idea, but I actually thought the ads were good, because they had a nod to tangata whenua while at the same time recognising what we often feel when we want to be somewhere else - that strong desire to just be able to up and fly there ourselves. Or maybe that's just because I've always wanted to be able to fly (despite being terrified of heights!) :-)

Span
http://spanblather.blogspot.com

satsumasalad April 21 2007, 06:56:35 UTC

It was exactly that belief (and its European equivalents) that make me associate these ads with death, and feel that the meeting with the loved one is a farewell. I think they're tremendously sad ads, and in the right context would have been thought-provoking and even poetic. But using death to sell me an air ticket is creepy to me, it's the wrong time and place.