Alas, no matter how many times you’ve learned how to buckle your seatbelt and return your seat back to its full upright position, you’re still obligated to re-learn every time you fly.

Luckily some clever aviation brands have taken it upon themselves to relieve their passengers of their woe by snazzing up their videos and unleashing them on the YouTube masses – and they’re really popular.

In the last three weeks alone four airline pre-screening videos accrued 4.7 million YouTube views – the most popular of which, a collaboration between Disney and KLM, nearly topped the vidIQ/Adweek Top 10 YouTube Brand Videos chart last week. These brands are leveraging collaborations and influencers in extraordinary ways in order to drive earned media and build brand equity – all things we’re very fond of here at vidIQ. Watch the videos below, check out their stats, and discover what they’re doing right or wrong.

Air New Zealand’s “Betty White — Safety Old School Style #airnzsafetyvideo”

Betty White’s collaboration with ANZ solidifies this air safety video as an instant classic.

Great number of shares on Facebook and Twitter. Well tagged! Solid, engaging description. Includes an end-card and annotations promoting other content. Cons:

End-card/annotations could be more engaging. No brand engagement with their commenters (proven to improve views by 4X). Could be promoting more links in description. KLM’s “Disney’s Planes: spectacular pre-screening on board of a KLM plane”

While it’s not a safety video per se, KLM’s pre-screening collaboration with Disney builds awareness for Pixar’s forthcoming “Planes.”

Above average Watch Time. Great number of shares on Facebook, Twitter. Well tagged! Good description length. Cons:

No end-card promoting other videos/a CTA! No links in description. No brand engagement with their commenters (proven to improve views by 4X). Virgin America’s “Safety Video #VXsafetydance”

Virgin proves everything is better with a robot-dance ensemble wearing flotation devices.

Great number of shares on Facebook, Twitter. Well tagged! Solid, engaging description. Cons:

No end-card promoting other videos/a CTA! No brand engagement with their commenters (proven to improve views by 4X). Could be promoting more links in description. Delta’s “Holiday In-Flight Safety Video”

Delta proves it’s never too early to start advertising Christmas with a creepy human-sized nutcracker.

No tags! Huge loss of organic traffic because of this. No description! How is your viewer supposed to know what action they should take next? No end-card promoting other videos/a CTA! No brand engagement with their commenters (proven to improve views by 4X). Could be promoting more links in description. Know any other great airline industry video examples? Let us know in the comments!

Bar chart showing social media engagement by airline on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube platforms

October has been a big month for a much-unloved fixture of air travel – the dreaded FAA mandated airline safety lesson that precedes every takeoff.

Posts tagged with “airline safety videos”

Airline Safety Videos Take Off On YouTube