Has Singapore Airlines just produced the most epic in-flight safety video of all time?
Singapore Airlines aims to take passengers beyond the confines of the cabin on an epic journey across the island state with its new in-flight safety video.
The recently released film allows viewers to join Elizabeth Quek, an airline hostess, on a panoramic exploration across various locations in Singapore including Boat Quay, Haji Lane, Capitol Theatre and the iconic Gardens by the Bay.
Having racked up more than half a million views on Facebook, plus 200,000 on YouTube, the video has been used as a marketing ploy by the airline, as well as being an effective way of encouraging flyers to actually watch the safety demonstration.
SIA’s attempt to create an in-flight video that goes beyond the usual grain follows Qatar Airways’ demonstration in 2016, which featured players from Barcelona FC.
Australian airline Qantas also took the opportunity to turn its safety demonstration into a tourism ad in its 2016 video.
Created by agency-of-record TBWA, SIA’s video stemmed from an agreement signed between the airline and Singapore Tourism Board, aimed at promoting travel to Singapore.
Under the partnership, SIA and STB will jointly invest S$10 million over three years in marketing, event promotion campaigns and travel technology.
The partnership, signed in June, came at the same time as Goh Choon Phong, the CEO of SIA, announced that the airline would need to cut jobs after suffering a S$138 million net loss in its fourth quarter.
The airline has also been forced to cut ticket prices due to challenge of fiercely intense competition, and recently offered its crews unpaid leave.
SIA has not revealed how much this particular video cost to produce.
Eleanor Dickinson is the editor of Mumbrella Asia. Eleanor joined the Asia platform from Dubai, where she acted as senior reporter for Campaign Middle East.
I love it. Well done to client and agency.
ReplyPerfect timing to launch a mega budget safety video right when you’ve just told your inflight staff to take unpaid leave. ??????
ReplyIsn’t it also time we stopped making the Singapore Girl the most insipid personality-less symbol of an airline that has done so much for safety standards? It looks like an extended television commercial (great) and a contrived STB plug (not so great). Does nothing for creating an image that’s current or that Singapore women do anything more than act subservient. Was Elizabeth asked to be on unpaid leave after shooting this?
g’use of drone shots and visual twists, Qantas!
ReplyYeah, looks like it’s borrowed some inspo from QANTAS…..
Replylol…yeah…whatever….doubt this is going to claw back any respectability they’ve lost. 700,000 combined views…who is watching…we don’t know. another fuzzy metric that allows everyone to crow about success.
I knew the writing was on the wall when their agency starting producing concepts that ian batey rejected years ago for not being on strategy.
ReplyTotally agree with you G’day. If a safety video is supposed to command attention, the insipid background music would have every passenger asleep before take-off. And could someone explain the backless heeled shoes? Don’t inflight crew change into sturdy shoes for take-off and landing for the precise reason of keeping them on as a passenger, that they stay on in an emergency? Weird.
ReplyYou mean I have to sit through the five and a half minutes of this slow moving crap every time I fly SQ?
ReplyThe overuse of the anamorphic flares and the heavy handed stylised orange/teal colour grading means that this is going to go out of style quicker than fidget spinners and the dab.
How’s that aspect ratio going to look on all those older screens too? Centre cut or squeeze in, either way sucks – how about shooting for the final output display instead of shooting what’s cool. At least Qantas and Qatar shot 16:9.
Please reconsider use of the word ‘epic’. This is ZzzZ boring compared to an actually creative In Flight video – have you seen Air New Zealand? Can you really compare the two? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOw44VFNk8Y
ReplyThat is epic, thanks for sharing.
I still enjoyed the Singapore Airlines version as well, and most (non-advertising) people I’ve talked to that have seen it, enjoyed it too.
Each to their own, I guess.
ReplyThe pace of this video defies belief. It is both too long and lacks any humour or wow factor common to other examples of this work.
ReplyIt is confusing too. Given that so many of SQ’s passengers (understandably ) don’t speak English this is actually quite a poor and confusing attempt of something that has been done so well by their competitors. For an airline of so many ‘firsts’ this is a surprisingly poor attempt. Not their best work. I give it a very limited run of weeks not months before common sense prevails .
Also from a production perspective that first scene or two where the lady walks across a bridge looks very ‘green screen’ to me..
I agree, it is an good attempt towards keeping up with the rest of the airlines but I thought it was a bit too long at 5+ mins. One of the main reasons for ‘creative’ videos like these are to get passengers’ attention but the video lost me at about 3 mins because of the flight attendant’s voice. Albeit spoken like a true SIA girl- with great composure and articulation, it was monotonous and just so typically SIA – always showing the SIA girl. They have got to change it up a bit more. Humour is always a great attention grabber. Air NZ realises the short attention span of passengers and try to change their videos about once a year. And, subtitles or like what Air France’s video did – they spoke in English and French.
Reply“Has Singapore Airlines just produced the most epic in-flight safety video of all time?” – NO. Not by a very long shot. Air New Zealand’s worst safety video is far better than this over-length boring yawn.
ReplyBoring, safe and thinking more about what the boss’ bosses will think.
ReplyIt’s a blatant copy of Qantas’ video. Why are we commending it?
ReplyGreat plagiarism SQ!
ReplyQantas’ is much more epic.
Nope. It’s derivative and sloooooooooow (ie. boring). It is a nice advert for singapore (made me a little nostalgic) but far from epic.
ReplyTo each to their own, I’m proud that our country’s airline and the agency responsible has produced something like this. I’m not so sure about some of the work coming out of National Service and the recent CPF work?
ReplyTelfast, it’s Formul8 again for those two work done recently.
ReplyI was watching youtube and this video came on…imagine not flying SIA and being served an inflight safety video. What is the purpose?
ReplyClueless bureaucrats faffing about…wondering why no one wants to fly them any more.
Imagine this project in the hands of a really local agency (we know who they are…cough cough).
Script will have the words to the safety video being recited by Singaporeans from all walks….trishaw driver, hotel doorman, hawker, raffled place office -goer, students….
ReplyI prefer the new BA inflight safety video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCoQwZ9BQ9Q
Far more entertaining. Someone who spends a lot of time on SQ, I will get very bored of the video very soon.
ReplyYou mean “most epic promotion video for Tourism Singapore”?
These things are all variations of the same. The first 10 times you fly you watch them, after that you don’t care anymore. Sure, nicely done but nonetheless warmed up coffee in a new cup.
ReplyHave your say