Air NZ go black & white

Air New Zealand has now adopted the official New Zealand Fern brand across the fleet to mark a $20 million, marketing partnership with Tourism New Zealand.

It is with some sadness that the iconic Pacific Jade (Teal) along with the Global Dark Blue corporate colours will be resigned to history...in favour of black and white.

The distinctive koru will remain.

Kiwis still feel passionate about the majority government owned airline and will have a strong opinion about a change of branding - Any brand that evokes such a passionate following must be doing something right.

Public reaction to the evolution of the promotional All Black livery introduced since the Rugby World Cup would have been closely monitored by Air New Zealand.

The airline needed to freshen-up its corporate look and painting it black seems to be a safe and tested option that is likely to attract favour with the New Zealand public.

I've got mixed feelings about the new "less is more" style. There seems to be no middle ground with the use of black as a style statement - it can either be refined and elegant or plain and boring.

It will be interesting how Air New Zealand's new black and white livery will compare when parked on an airport tarmac amongst other airlines that have a rainbow of multi-coloured designs,

"This new look will be rolled out in stages from later this year. It will be painted on to its 103 aircraft starting later this year and take 18 months to roll out across the fleet. Its “koru” logo stays on the tail but airline’s historic teal color will disappear. For plane aficionados, if this new design looks familiar, that because Air NZ has gone for a fern design before, when it sponsored the national rugby team All Blacks for the world cup in 2011 and rolled out an all black themed aircraft.
This comes as the airline also announced a tie up with Tourism New Zealand to undertake joint marketing activity to promote the destination to key international markets (and here we thought it always had a deal there). Both of the orgs will invest more than $10 million over the next 12 months to promote NZ in Australia, China, Hong Kong, Japan, North America, the UK and Europe."

Source: Click HERE

Don't F*** Around In Room 427

 A short film about a hotel with very strict policies!

No F****** Around In Room 427 from Danny Sangra on Vimeo.

The floating motel

I see that Cook Strait ferry operator Bluebridge has launched an overnight accommodation service and are promoting this as an alternative for passengers booking into a motel.

Passengers travelling on the company's 2:30am crossing to Picton can board four hours early and go to sleep in a special pre-booked cabin.

They will then be woken at 6am when the ship arrives at the South Island.

Bluebridge's media promotes this new service as "turning one of their ships into a motel while it is berthed in Wellington" and saving passengers the "hassle" of having to pay for accommodation or having to wait in their cars until just before the ship leaves.  

While an attraction to the new service may be its novelty value, budget conscious travellers will easily connect the dots that the combination of sleeping while on the move will be a cost saving.

The spartan rooms come in a single, double or four-person configuration and all of them have their own bathroom with shower, as well as wireless internet.

Passengers will have to pay extra for the room, with the single costing $30, the double costing $40 and the four-person room costing $60.

Bluebridge general manager Peter Ellison says the service will save passengers time and money.

"Passengers can be onboard and in their cabin by midnight, allowing them six hours to sleep, shower and eat before they arrive in Picton at 6am."

The service began this week.

Jasons upload new Love Print video

In a post last month, we asked the question: Has Jasons Travel FAKED Their Latest Campaign?

Well, maybe not intentionally...however the Jasons Love Print multi-media campaign provided a classic SMOG moment that is a valuable lesson for the travel industry when embarking on future campaigns :-)

The "staged" video controversy has been mentioned in a Jasons Travel Media newsletter sent to clients today and we are happy to allow them have the final say:

"In May, we launched a "love print" campaign articulated around a thought-provoking video and an informative website www.loveprint.co.nz, designed to remind everyone that travellers still rely on print publications when dreaming, planning and booking their travel.

The video showed people picking brochures off a shelf at Auckland Airport, clearing its contents in less than three hours. Of course we staged it (it's an ad!), but the popular blog Motella noted that, if watched frame-by-frame, the video showed two Jasons' staff members picking up brochures, and thus contended that it was false advertising.

This was enough to generate quite a bit of a controversy on the internet, and so we adjusted the video so there was no stopwatch and the fact that it was a staged ad was clearer.

Whether this brochure stand is emptied in a few hours or less than a day, our message is simple and unchanged: Travellers still love print! We have distributed ten million tourism brochures over the last year, so we are well placed to know that Print is very much alive and kicking. Print is not dead; it is simply changing and adapting, and with online and offline integration, print is actually getting more exciting than ever!"

TripAdvisor - One step closer to world domination

It looks like TripAdvisor has done a much needed makeover by decluttering its homepage and giving a fresh prominence to a new all-in-one accommodation price comparison search function.

I've given TripAdvisor's new search engine a comprehensive two-minute test drive and it looks like consumers will be able to quickly identify and drill down accommodation selections and be motivated to make a reservation with the confidence of easily comparing most other options available.

TripAdvisor "the world's largest travel site" will make the most of its 200 million unique monthly visitors and over 100 million reviews by making online bookings a distinct call-to-action and taking a slice of the action as they ramp-up diverting consumer accommodation searches to major OTAs.

It looks to me like a perfect online business model. TripAdvisor's main consumer attraction are the "trusted" reviews that are freely crowdsourced by willing travellers. The high-maintence business of dealing with accommodation suppliers and those pesky consumers are left to specialist OTA partners, while TripAdvisor maintain an attractive portal, sit back and clip the ticket.

Read more: Click HERE

Living Wage Hypocrisy?

The Living Wage is a concept that is enthusiastically trotted out into the media by the unions, Mana and the Green/Labour bloc as a way to show that they are caring and sharing (with other people's money).

As we creep towards an election, we'll be hearing more from the left about the Living Wage. Those that promote this simplistic feel-good slogan will conveniently forget to mention that what is really needed to raise wages sustainably is an environment that encourages improved productivity and lower compliance costs.  

Although they should understand the realities of running a business, the Tourism Industry Association (TIA) have naively flirted with promoting the Living Wage to its members and industry magazine, Tourism Business has devoted editorial space with shrill praise of the concept.

I see that Whaleoil has tag-teamed our post back in September 2011 about ex-Labour MP, Mark Peck's career change of running a small cafe business in Wellington.

As many motel owners can appreciate, Peck had a reality check when he experienced the many obstacles of running a small business:

"It's the little things that Mark Peck, businessman, finds most frustrating about the activities of his predecessor, Mark Peck, politician. The hours he now spends documenting compliance with health regulations, preparing tax returns and fulfilling his ACC obligations, the business lost through council roadworks and the impossibility of ferrying supplies from the loading zone across the road to his cafe in the five minutes he is permitted to park".

Oh, and Peck has also found himself at odds with Labour's wacky pledge to remove GST off fresh fruit and vegetables:

"...Mr Peck shakes his head in disbelief. The idea is "silly" and impractical. The only people who benefit will be lawyers and accountants."

And then there's that vexing issue of paying staff wages when you are operating in a tough low-margin industry.

"He pays above minimum wage to all his nine staff, although "not a lot in some cases". The critical issue is the level the wage is set, he says.

"What I've learnt  is that in an industry with low margins, wage costs are very significant. I just don't think people understand the effect a $15 minimum wage would have on businesses like this. Prices would have to go up."

And, if prices go up, customers already feeling the economic squeeze, change their spending habits. Instead of ordering off the menu, they buy cheaper pre-made food out of the cabinet. Or they eat out less. the result: less profit for the owners; less money to employ staff."

Does this sound familiar?

We had great hopes for Mark Peck after he stood on his own two-feet and experienced for himself the burden government can impose on small business owners.

Sadly it would appear that Peck remains conveniently addicted to the left and public funding as Whaleoil blogs:

"So, Mark Peck is standing for council in Wellington, he has Grant Robertson as his authorised person and is standing under a Labour banner all the while sharing an office that the taxpayer is funding. I just love how the left-wing rolls".  

And like Whaleoil, I wonder if Peck has had yet another about-face and is now paying his nine cafe employees a Living Wage of $19 per hour as per Labour Party policy?

Pay with a kiss

A clever social media brand awareness campaign initiated by a Sydney cafe offered free coffee for a kiss.

As motel accommodation is a bit more expensive than a coffee purchase, I wonder what alternative gesture we could suggest for our customers wanting to qualify for a free stay?

Success in travel by offering cheap, crap service?

In advertising you have to be authentic and "say who you are". If you get it wrong you risk losing credibility and the public can use social media to instantly bite back.

Probably the best example of a travel related business using extreme honesty in their advertising  is the iconic Hans Brinker Budget Hotel. It takes a special accommodation provider to advertise its point of difference as being; "The worst hotel in the world".

Instead of raising consumers' hopes, Ryanair have also become known for telling-it-like-it-is by often using humour to communicate that they are cheap, offer spartan service and receive regular complaints.

Ryanair's latest advertising campaign appears to poke fun at their customers that have the cheek to whinge about a cattle-class travel experience.

"Well with prices this cheap, people need to shut the f*ck up and deal with it, because beggars can’t be choosers"

Motel Cars

It was with great sadness when I read Ford Australia's announcement that the Falcon will be retired.

Over the years, commercial travellers arrived at out motel in a limited range of vehicles. Sales reps were commonly allotted a narrow range of Ford, Holden and Toyota sedans. The higher the rep's status, the further up the manufacturer's range they went, with top performers allotted 6/8-cylinder Falcons, Commodores and Camrys.

Sales reps are now arriving at our motel in a seemingly endless range of vehicle makes and models.

The Falcon, as with other large-engine vehicle options has been under threat for some time from company bean-counters continue to make one-off fleet deals for smaller engine capacity vehicles from a wide range of manufacturer distributors now available.

Even the vehicle types now driven by sales reps have become fragmented with mass-consumer spec'd SUVs and utes adding to the once dominant sedan.

Although I still can't see any sense in driving a lumbering SUV or ute, I like to think that I'm not tunnel visioned when it comes to vehicle branding. I attempted to prove this to my self 18-months ago when contemplating a new Motella-mobile.

I parked my car with  with a little lion emblazoned on the hood outside the local Ford dealership and after taking a deep breath, strode into the unfathomed territory of a car show room with a large blue oval prominently displayed.

I was quizzically greeted with by a dapper older gentleman and after sharing the usual pleasantries I broke the following awkward silence by stating that I was interested in looking at one of those Falcony things. I wanted one with large tyres, an exhaust the size of a drainpipe and a V8 engine - what models have you got?

A strange look came over the salesman's face, he started to look rather uncomfortable and replied that they no longer stock V8s any more and proceeded to give a rather long and boring explanation about how Ford had split divisions, changed the supply chain and apparently getting one of these rare beasts was....really hard for them.

I broke a further awkward silence by asking for a brochure and was again greeted with a bemused look. The salesman ducked out the back and after rifling around for a bit found a glossy brochure of very nice looking cars from last year's FPV range and proudly announced that I could get a general idea what the current models may look like.

I  helpfully mentioned that I could probably look on the internet for the very latest models. This proposed exit strategy to rid the showroom of an annoying customer brightened up the salesman no end...

After stalking out of the showroom of the blue oval I went straight down to the Holden dealership. As I entered the showroom I felt immediately at ease as I saw the familiar red logo with the lion on it. I was welcomed back home by a salesman that I went to school with and soon we were sipping instant coffee from plastic mugs and swapping stories about our children.

Brochures of muscular looking cars with all the right credentials were offered and I started wondering why I ever contemplated entering the den of the blue oval.

I learned a lot that day....after I arrived  home, I listed my aging Holden on TradeMe.

Much later I went online and purchased another car with a little lion emblazoned on the hood from an out of town dealer I had never met before and it arrived on a car carrier a few weeks later....

Hotel/Motel - The Movie

Watch out for the release of this indie film currently in production.

It's got to be better than the endless conveyer belt of heavily-scripted, over-produced docudramas being served up at the moment:

"Hotel/Motel journeys into the lives of hospitality professionals and the patrons they serve. Filmed across America in distinct locations like the Farris Truck Stop and Motel in Faucet, Missouri and the Millennium Hilton in downtown Manhattan, the idea of lodging as a character frames the entire narrative. This film is an intimate portrait of the diverse, yet anonymous characters that strive to make your stay pleasant".