Engaging Attention

I flew to Melbourne on Friday to attend the Australian Sports Technologies Network Conference.
On my way down to Melbourne the Qantas safety video used Australian Test Cricketers to share safety messages.
On the return trip the messages were presented by Australian Olympians and Paralympians.
I thought the videos were very effective and they prompted me to think about the use of trigger videos to engage attention and offer learning opportunities. I do think short video segments are excellent ways to engage an audience.
Air New Zealand have provided a great example of how this can be done. Their recent safety video (5 million views on YouTube) is structured around Hobbit characters.

Perhaps I have enjoyed these films because I do attend to each safety demonstration on every flight I take. But I do think there are some very interesting pedagogical issues at play here.
What if a passenger’s responsibility for each flight is flipped and that each of us views a safety briefing before we get to the airport? Given the cast of the Air New Zealand flight there could be subtle changes in the storyboard of characters to give almost infinite variations in safety briefings.
Even better … what if passengers created their own safety briefing to come prepared to fly and owned the responsibility for a narrative of safety.