Middle earth express

The video is, of course, only the first step in a journey expected to revive New Zealand’s flagging tourism industry and provide a boost to its flag carrier. In late November AirNZ unveiled the first of two Hobbit-themed aircraft alongside a Shire’s-worth of related promotions from long-haul socks emblazoned with hirsute Hobbit feet to a Hobbit-themed baggage carousel at Wellington Airport where visitors are greeted by a 12-metre statue of the slimy villainous Gollum.

Much of this builds on successful cross-promotions with the earlier Lord of the Rings movies, which sparked demand from tourists seeking out the rolling hills of Hobbiton and the heady peaks of the Misty Mountains – or their real life equivalents. Like The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Hobbit was shot mostly in New Zealand.

But as AirNZ Head of International Marketing Jodi Williams acknowledges, the marketing push this time around is considerably more involved, reflecting larger changes in the industry as it embraces new technologies and ways to reach potential customers.

“If you go back 10 years, there wasn’t the social media, digital content aspect,” Williams says. “For example, we didn’t do things like the safety video last time around.”

AirNZ did fly Hobbit-themed aircraft during the previous campaign, but the effort this time is bigger. At 83m2 – and despite consisting mostly of pictures of Dwarves – the Hobbit livery unveiled on November 24 on one of the carrier’s Boeing 777-300s is billed as the largest graphic ever applied to an aircraft. Rather than repainting the plane, AirNZ used a special aircraft film applied in pieces like huge sticky labels – a process that took six days and some 400 man-hours and went forward under heavy security. Weighing only around 7kg, the film has little or no effect on aircraft aerodynamics and when it’s time has come – which isn’t likely to be for a couple years – the graphic can be peeled off without requiring a re-paint. As one would expect, the whole process is approved by the safety regulator.

“Air NZ used a special aircraft film applied in pieces like huge sticky labels – a process that took six days and some 400 man-hours.”

A second Hobbit-themed 777 is scheduled to be unveiled ahead of the next Hobbit movie, the oddly named The Desolation of Smaug, which is scheduled for release in December 2013. At the moment AirNZ’s marketing deal only extends to the first two movies. When it was signed only two movies were planned, but Williams says it’s entirely possible it will be extended for a third.

Though it is probably quaint nowadays to suggest that it might somehow be possible to over-commercialise a beloved children’s tale like The Hobbit, it remains to be seen whether there is some limit to how much Hobbit the world can endure. In addition to the airline’s efforts, New Zealand went so far as to temporarily re-name Wellington as “The Middle of Middle Earth” for the movie’s November 28 world premiere and to produce special Hobbit-themed stamps and coins. Meanwhile, all manner of special package tours have been rolled out to give visitors the expected Hobbit experience without quite so much of the journey.

This might already seem like a great deal of Hobbit, but as Williams points out it’s still very early days. “We might sit here now and think, ‘gosh, there’s been a lot of Hobbit’, but most people haven’t even seen the movie yet. From The Lord of the Rings movies, the lesson was that you wouldn’t see the impact in terms of tourists until a year or so down the road.”

Still, Williams acknowledges that the possibility of overkill exists, and says the airline will take a targeted approach with its messaging and promotional materials. As popular as the movies might prove, dwarves and elves and wizards don’t appeal to everyone and AirNZ will continue to target markets with other interests – like rugby. The airline last year unveiled a number of all-black aircraft to tie-in with the country’s rugby world championship.

The worst-case scenario with the Hobbit promotion, of course, is that the movies flop. This may seem as hard to imagine as an advertising agency in Middle Earth, but it’s possible. After all, J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit is shorter than any one of the books in his Lord of the Rings trilogy, and the movie version enters theatres amidst much higher expectations. But Williams, for one, isn’t too concerned.

“We felt very confident when we went into it, based off the book and based off Peter Jackson’s legacy, that this would appeal to a very wide audience,” she says, referring to the New Zealand director behind both sets of films. “I think we’re confident that it’s not going to be a flop. But at the same time, it’s not like we’ve built our entire marketing plan for the next three years around The Hobbit. We know it’s not going to appeal to everyone.”