You might have thought it was sheer fun when you saw video of the rapping flight attendant at Southwest Airlines. Now Air New Zealand has launched its Nothing to Hide safety video. In the fun, ehem…cheeky video, flight attendants and pilots wear nothing but very cleverly applied body paint. Even if you’re at your desk and not on an Air New Zealand plane, I bet you’ll watch the whooole thing.

Did they do it just for fun? For the nearly four million views they’ve garnered on YouTube? To cover their liability in case of an accident where someone could declare “gee, I never saw any safety information?” I bet those things were down on the list a bit. I think they did it to get a financial performance payoff.

Not as many of us are traveling over the oceans on planes these days. And every major airline is trying something to recover or stay healthy. Air New Zealand has done it by providing air travel in a distinctively New Zealand way. That’s the need they solve for customers. More specific than “we sell air travel,” Air New Zealand builds performance by being a champion of New Zealand culture and taking advantage of the creativity of its people. What a great litmus test for decisions like safety videos and marketing campaigns.

The point of the video and accompanying ad, as Bettina Wassener of The New York Times tells us, “is that unlike other airlines, which increasingly add hidden charges to fares in an effort to increase falling revenue, Air New Zealand has nothing to hide.” As a marketing campaign this sits squarely in Kiwi culture: authentic and not afraid to have a laugh.

Each video took a day to shoot and cost about 10 to 15 percent of the cost of a major brand commercial since there were no actors to pay. So Air New Zealand improved its customer experience AND saved some money. Cheeky indeed. Overall, how are things going at Air New Zealand? Even in these tough times the airline has grown revenue and managed to stay profitable.

If you haven’t been to New Zealand (bummer for you) it might be hard to understand how important Kiwi culture is to this story. You could look here to see how the airline talks about it. Or you could catch this road sign I found on a trip there last December:

That’s New Zealand – take care of yourself, but don’t take yourself too seriously.

To see the safety video with the accompanying ad, the bloopers reel and a behind-the-scenes clip with CEO Rob Fyfe painted (yes – painted) as a baggage handler, go here.

What did you do today that improved your customer experience and your financial performance?