Branded content for me has been hit or miss for a long time. Blurring the lines between advertising and entertainment requires a good balance betweeen the product and the entertainment. The best example for a long time for me was the BMW short films with A-List celebreties or the Prada one with Sir Ben Kingsley. However, I’ve noticed one of the recent trends has been from the airlines; creating their own kind of branded content via the safety video.

I find it curious that although most of us have all flown and watched these videos many times, they are now getting high view counts on social networks.

Air New Zealand – 1,981,017 views today

Virgin America – 299,969 views today

Air New Zealand seem to really take this seriously, creating fun and targeted videos for all their audiences:

Cause who doesn’t love Richard Simmons?

The Hobbit:

Rugby:

I’d agrue that all the examples above far out entertain the regular videos we are custom to seeing on airlines and to be honest a great marketing tool for a piece of content they always need. It’s frugal marketing in my opinion.