Reviving a tired format - Thomson's Flight Safety Video

I've just got back from a thoroughly relaxing holiday in Mexico, refreshed and resolved to get back into the swing of things blog-wise.

A great excuse to do so came in the form of the safety announcement on the return flight of our Thomson holiday, which was an great example of how a little bit of creativity and effort can make a massive difference.

The video below is well worth a watch. It's your standard safety announcement. We've all heard it every time we've flown, and I know I had become one of those people who didn't even lower their newspaper. When I have, the flight attendants (and this is only in my experience, which is largely of a lowish-cost nature, I am sure it is not true of all flight attendants) have seemed equally as indifferent to the actual point of the rigmarole.



There are numerous areas where companies like Thomson can make little but memorable differences to people's holiday experiences, and they force competitors to raise their game as well. There's a practical application in this case as it leaves the full cabin crew to continue preparations for the flight (or discuss loudly and at length the sexual orientation of all male cabin crew in the fleet, in this instance) and the surprise of the difference made everyone pay attention.

In the case of raising the mundane above the usual, the applications are seemingly endless for any brand. Humour will tend to play some role. A good example of this is the (admittedly now slightly tired itself) Orange Cinema Gold Spot.

Putting little messages on the packaging of different products within your range, to give them their own little identity, would also come under this 'simple but effective' umbrella. To use another aviation example, Virgin Atlantic did this with the packs containing your standard socks and sleeping mask. It's the sort of thing you are more likely to keep, and that might help make you come back.

A friend's company, the runaway success that is Rollasole, has this kind of attention to detail. There's a different passage in each different colour of pump. It probably goes unread by the majority of customers, particularly as the product is aimed at the 'end of the night' crowd, but it's there, and it shows care.



I know the Thomson example isn't especially new, a hazard of taking a rather late summer holiday. Ironically I think if the kids in the Thomson Flight Safety Video, rather than the rather disinterested adult cabin crew we got, had been in charge, I might have had a better flying experience.