ADS - A NEW CREATIVE APPROACH

Sometimes I find things that are just too good to leave unacknowledged. So this morning's blog is an article about something clever (or outrageous, depending on your particular mindset) that is going on in New Zealand.

By RAY LILLEY
Jul 3, 7:37 AM (ET)

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) - New Zealand's national airline has adopted a cheeky way to encourage passengers to watch its in-flight safety video: The cabin crew's uniforms are nothing but body paint.

The "Bare Essentials of Safety," screening in the cabins of planes flying Air New Zealand's main domestic routes, has gone viral online. It had 1.2 million YouTube views by Friday, four days after it was launched.

In the video, three cabin staff and a pilot, all in full body paint applied to look like their uniforms, talk viewers through the aircraft's safety procedures.

A demonstration seat belt, life jacket and arm rests are strategically positioned during the 3 1/2-minute video to protect the cabin crew's ... discretion. Passengers are shown ogling, mostly in appreciation.

The body paint idea is also being used in a series of television advertisements in New Zealand for the airline, which include the promise: "At Air New Zealand, our fares have nothing to hide."

One ad even features chief executive Rob Fyfe in body paint.

"We think in tough times there's a premium for making people smile, and it gives the opportunity to stand out in a crowd," Air New Zealand's marketing general manager Steve Bayliss told The Associated Press.

Each crew member spent about three hours having the body paint applied.

The video needed "a little bit of a hint, but every frame has to be as modest as anything you see at the local swimming pool or the beach in summer," Bayliss said.

After all, the people in the ads are not models or actors but work colleagues, he said.

Now I think that's a really clever approach, although I'm not sure the actual message of safety procedures gets through to the brain while the eyes are so busy ogling. Better, I think, is the simple approach in doing body painting just for the fun of it, as shown in the photo below. A group of 8 or 10 photos taken of different people with different paintings was forwarded to me some time ago, and while I've laughed my head off over most of them, the one below is about the only one that I feel comfortable enough to use on this blog, as it is the least outrageous.

Anyway, reading all this is a good way to start your day, don't you think?