Air New Zealand wants you to shave your head for them — and they’ll give you $1000

by Meg Massie on

Air New Zealand knows that when you go to the airport, you’re going to be spending a lot of time in line, staring at the back of the head of the guy in front of you — so they want to give you something useful to read. The airline is holding open auditions next week for folks willing to shave their heads and become “Cranial Billboards.”

Seriously. Hopefuls can attend casting calls with free BBQ, refreshments, and entertainment, and those selected will be shaved on the spot and given a two-week temporary tattoo, which will alert customers to changes in the airline’s check-in system and direct them to the company’s website. Each person selected as a cranial billboard will also receive $1000 cash compensation.

If you think you’ve got the ideal skull shape for this job, find more info about the casting calls here.

What other strange things have been found on planes?


Beginning today: Boarding pass advertisements

by Grant Martin on

Six of the legacy carriers carriers announced today that they’re participating in a new program to implement advertisements into their boarding passes. So now when you try to save time by checking in online you’ll be bombarded with a Carnivial Cruise ad that you have to print out and carry around with you while you’re at the airport.

Anything to make money, right? I’m kind of surprised that we don’t have ad space on the inside of aircraft — on the ceiling, walls and seat backs — US Airways already tried putting advertisements on the air sickness bags.

Today, Delta will be the first carrier to test drive the service, called Sojern, on its routes into Vegas, but the ads will quickly multiply around that route. Bacteria reproducing in a host body is a good way to think about that.

What I’m most curious about is whether the 3rd party ads will be custom tailored to the specific passenger. Will I, a young male be getting ads for Lane Bryant? Or will Sojern work with the airline to study my travel behavior, look at my past trips and send me a coupon for happy hour in New York?

Either way, you can kiss your old print-at-home boarding passes goodbye. Which is fine with me, as long as they don’t raise ticket prices.

Baggage carousel ads: coming to an airport near you

by Grant Martin on

As our good friend Blogger Jeremy can probably tell you, one of challenges to marketing research is finding a good medium on which to deliver your ad. If you can find a way to acutely deliver your message to your target demographic, you’ve done your job well. For example, you don’t see many ads for GI Joes or Depends on Gadling.

And where else are you intensely focused and forced to watch than on the baggage carousel? Double Take marketing unfortunately just figured out that the perfect way to deliver advertisements to a select demographic (business or leisure travelers) is down where you get your luggage. You’re staring at the rotating metal blades, waiting for you luggage with nothing to do, and out pops an ad. You have to look, right?

Lucky for me, I still don’t check luggage. But the rest of you may soon have to put up with advertisements on your baggage carousels — installation begins this August. Take a look at the video below to see the ads in action.

It’s arrived. New airline to charge by pound

by Grant Martin on

Both The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News ran ads today advertising the purported new airline Derrie-Air, the new airline concept that charges for both the weight of the passenger and his or her luggage..

At flyderrie-air.com you can check out some of the airline’s deals per per pound, from $1.40/pp from Philadelphia to Chicago to $2.25/lb from Philly to Los Angeles. Weigh a lot and packing several suitcases? Tough cookies, you’re paying $700 to fly across the country. Small sized and only taking a carry on? You might get away with $300.

So for all of you who voiced your outrage at Robert Mann’s idea that passengers should pay by the pound, the jig is up; we’ve entered a new era of airline operation.

Or not. It turns out that the whole thing was a prank by Philadelphia Media Holdings “to test the results of advertising in our print and online products and to stimulate discussion on a timely environmental topic of interest to all citizens”.

No better way to generate buzz and fire up the passenger base than to start claiming airline fee strategies, right? I do have to give them credit though, their website is a pretty big kick. They advertise their airline as a “carbon neutral” entity because they’re planting zillions of trees in the Derrie Forrest as well as porcelain fixtures and gilded faucets in their aircraft.

You almost believe them until you read the fine print at the end of the page.

Three travel sites have gained more power

by Jamie Rhein on

What do Jaunted.com and HotelChatter.com now have in common? Both of these blogs have been snapped up by CondéNet, the publisher of Concierge.com. SFO*Media, the previous publisher of these two travel blogs is now under the CondéNet umbrella.

Does this mean that Jaunted.com or HotelChatter.com will look different? Will they be different? Not necessarily. Both will continue in their blogging world ways with Jaunted honing in on popular culture travel and HotelChatter continuing to provide the latest news bits and tips about hotels and lodging around the world. Add Concierge’s focus on upscale, trendy travel to the other two, and that’s a powerful travel trio.

What does this mean for me, you might wonder? CondéNet now has more reach when it comes to marketing and attracting big money advertising. There will be more coordination between the three sites, so you might notice crossover information. It also says that the media world is recognizing that the people who are reached by travel blogs are mighty in numbers, are passionate about travel, and they have some money to spend. These are forces to tap into.