Airline Virgin America has released a new safety procedure video to grab passengers’ attention after all these years of the same boring instructions. If you’ve ever flown on an airplane, then you know what I’m talking about.
The flight attendant (and sometimes a video) demonstrates how to buckle the seat belt, put on an oxygen mask and exit during an emergency.
I, along with many other frequent flyers, am guilty of tuning out the safety instructions despite the fact that they could potentially save my life in an emergency. Sometimes it seems like the flight attendants care even less than the passengers.
Well, Virgin America is showing they care about your safety and has created a new instructional video, which is executed more like a music video. NY Daily News reports that this video is a remake of the animated instructional video Virgin America released in 2007, which had less entertainment.
The video, directed by John M. Chu (director of “Step Up 2 and “Step Up 3”) features the work of former “American Idol” contestant Todrick Hall; dancers from previous seasons of So You Think you Can Dance; and even a dancing nun played by former Olympian gymnast Tamara Campos, according to NY Daily News.
Everything that is either sung or said in the video shows up in subtitles on the bottom, so if you don’t want to listen you can just read along instead. The video mainly consists of attractive flight attendants singing instructions, but it also features a young girl rapping about oxygen masks, a dance team performing to a “robot rap” about inflatable life vests and contortionists demonstrating how not to sit in your seat.
The video is about five minutes long, and there is a lot packed into it, but could it possibly be too much? With all the singing and dancing and rapping, could the details be getting lost?
“It kept my attention pretty well, but sometimes it was hard to understand because there was a lot going on,” said Erica Fremming, a junior and fine arts major. “But it is catchy, and it matches a lot of advertisements today.”
Brain World Magazine says that echoic memories (auditory memories of songs, voices and sounds) are powerful, so even though there is a lot going on in the video, delivering the information in a song may help us to recall it if an emergency situation were to happen.
Furthermore, iconic (visual) memories, like pictures, are powerful because they tap into the basic instincts of the human brain, since vision preceded reading or writing.
The video pairs songs for echoic memory with pictures for iconic memory, which can increase the chances that an individual will recall the information more easily in an emergency situation.
In this sense, the video is more effective at delivering the safety information to passengers than the typical, boring demonstration that airlines have used for years.
After all, Virgin America isn’t asking people to like the song. The airline is just encouraging everyone to pay attention for five short minutes while crucial safety information is delivered to them before their journey.
There is a line in the song about having to completely shut off electronic devices on the plane, but this is already outdated, since the Federal Aviation Administration made an announcement two days after the release of the video that passengers will soon be able to use cell phones “gate-to-gate” as long as the phone is set to airplane mode, said NY Daily News.
This portion of the video features Tamara Campos wearing nun attire using her cell phone and ignoring instructions to turn off the phone. Is Virgin America taking a stab at strict Catholic nuns? I don’t think so.
They are trying to appeal to many different walks of life, and I hope critics don’t exaggerate this point and use it as a reason to dislike the video.
The 2007 safety video, which was hand-drawn with animated characters, was well-received by passengers and the public, according to CNN, but Virgin America felt it needed to be refreshed to keep passengers interested.
Another tactic they’re using to appeal to passengers is a promotion (which ended Oct. 29) where customers can get up to 20 percent off their ticket price if they use a promo code referencing the video.
The airline is making yet another attempt to reel in fans and passengers by holding an Instagram talent competition.
The winner will appear in the next in-flight version of the safety video, according to CNN. Virgin America is the first airline to attempt fun, modern videos and Instagram contests as marketing tactics, and hopefully other airlines will pick this up as well.
“I think we’ve successfully taken Virgin America into new, uncharted territory with this safety video, and I really hope to see people doing their own versions of the safety dance soon,” said Jon M. Chu, the director of the video, in a recent press release, according to NY Daily News.
The video may be flashy, but hopefully it proves to be effective. As someone who has seen and heard the boring instructions typically used on airplanes many times, I hope to actually remember these instructions after seeing this video.
It’s a nice tune to start off your flight, all while giving you important safety information and possibly taking your mind off your fears of flying. Virgin America has gotten a lot of positive feedback, and I predict that other airlines will follow suit.
Avery Twible can be reached atavery.twible@spartans.ut.edu
