In 2009, Air New Zealand needed to combat the recession and an aggressive new competitor. They responded by demonstrating their unique attitude, transparent, all-inclusive fares and significantly raising their profile worldwide.

The resulting ‘Nothing to Hide’ film featured real Air New Zealand staff wearing nothing but body-paint. In fact even the airline’s CEO – Rob Fyfe bared all, starring as one of the baggage handlers.

This idea relied on the authenticity of using real staff in real roles. This would be challenging enough for most non-talent but to do it naked added huge impact and relevance. Furthermore, we asked the CEO himself to feature in the campaign and he did so, ‘leading from the front’. We wanted to create talk ability in order to maximise as many free media dollars as we could muster. We launched the campaign exclusively online and posted it on blogs worldwide before it ever appeared on national TV. Using the official safety video as a media channel was completely unique to Air NZ and the resulting YouTube ratings and views (once posted) reflected the strength of the idea. Further international media coverage from TV to newspapers to online, again justified the idea and the execution to the estimated tune of Millions of dollars. Other media channels employed were press, mobile, outdoor and online.

YouTube: 5,239,470 views.International media coverage including the US, Australia, Asian and Europe (our four main markets) estimated in the million’s.51% of New Zealanders saw the campaign through word-of-mouth.YouTube #1 position in Travel and Events.

78% campaign awareness – double that of any previous campaign.

95% Correct brand attribution.

220,000 YT viewers visited airnewzealand.co.nz 93% were ‘first-time visitors’.Twitter posts: 80 to 26,000 in one day.