There’s not much that can drag my attention away from a good book or magazine on a long haul flight. In fact, over the years, I’ve come to realise that reading forms an essential part of my ‘take off ritual’.
I’m sure everyone has one of these. Mine goes like this: find seat, put bag in overhead locker, sit down, take off shoes, search for menu and check out what’s for dinner (if appropriate), then engross myself in inflight magazine or book until just after takeoff.
Under no circumstances, absolutely no circumstances, would I ever bother to listen to or watch the safety announcement. After all, what’s the point? If it all goes wrong at 30,000 ft, or even 100ft for that matter, the chances of walking away are nil.
Contrast this attitude to my first couple of flights when I structinised the announcement word for word, and surreptitiously practiced the brace position, while carefully mapping my way to the nearest emergency exit. Oh how times have changed… that is, until a recent flight to Goa.
Ding dong. Ladies and Gentleman, came the voice. Oh boring I thought, here we go again. On behalf of Thomson Airways and my crew, welcome on board. Errr, I thought, that’s either one freaky air stewardess or a child. Lo and behold it was a child, and about four of her child friends, presenting the safety video.
After my initial shock came the horror. Oh my God, this is really twee, excruciating even – a child, presenting the safety video, in an annoying child-like voice. But I have to admit it was very effective. It made almost everyone sit up and listen, even an old safety cynic like me.
It works because it breaks with the normal conventions and is truly unexpected – a child advising mostly adults on a serious issue. If you take away the initial reaction of whether it’s distasteful or even downright naff, it achieves its objective of engaging the audience. Well done Beattie McGuinness Bungay for that clever idea.
It seems that other organisations have cottoned on to this tactic. Given Catalysis’s focus on technology this recent video from Accenture made its way to my desktop. Once again it uses children to convey a complex message to an adult audience, this time around cloud computing. Over half of the comments on YouTube are positive, but what do you think about this sort of tactic?