Air NZ revels in Lord of the Rings imagery

By SIMON HENDERY, marketing writer

Increased sightings of giant elves, hobbits, warriors and princesses at airport tarmacs around the world mean it must be Lord of the Rings season again.

As Wellington hypes up for next week's world premiere of The Return of the King, the last of four Air New Zealand planes hit the tarmac yesterday resplendent in Middle-earth livery.

The massive images on the planes - such as one of actors Viggo Mortensen and Orlando Bloom and a Central Otago backdrop - will mean different things to different people.

For Tolkienites and plane spotters it is a sign that warrior Aragorn and elf Legolas are about to return for a final run of big-screen adventure.

For the official "airline to Middle-earth" it marks the start of an invigorated marketing campaign made possible after more than a year and a half of negotiating and relationship-building with the movie trilogy's producer, New Line Cinema.

"We want to ensure New Zealand's identification with the film is carried to the broadest audience during this critical period," says Air New Zealand vice-president of marketing and alliances, Ed Sims.

"As airline to Middle-earth we have clearly benefited from an increased desire among global travellers to visit New Zealand.

"The publicity powerhouse that will be unleashed with The Return of the King will undoubtedly accelerate this growth."

Sims first met New Line early last year and the first Rings "flying billboard" hit the skies last December to coincide with the release of part two of the trilogy.

He will not say how much Air New Zealand is paying New Line for the rights to use LOTR imagery, but says this year's Middle-earth campaign has a multimillion-dollar budget and is about twice the level of last year's spend.

"We saw it as a superb vehicle for positioning New Zealand, particularly in markets where New Zealand had relatively low awareness.

"And where we were positioning New Zealand clearly we wanted to position Air New Zealand directly alongside, given that we fly to and over more of the destinations where these films were filmed than any other airline."

The campaign - involving repeated use of the airline's in-flight magazine, in-flight entertainment, messages to customers via its mailing lists as well as the aircraft "billboards" and traditional advertising - also works in New Line's favour as a plug for the movie.

"New Line saw us almost as a media owner, delivering to an audience who are particularly receptive to the Middle-earth message," Sims says.

Under its agreement with New Line, Air NZ will keep the planes flying until August next year, when The Return of the King goes to video and DVD.

That was a sensible "promotional window" for the campaign given there would be a number of milestones for the movie between next week's world premiere and the video/DVD release.

There is the general worldwide release from December 18 and an expected resurgence of interest through a strong showing at the Oscars in February.

Asked about the success of the airline's campaign around last year's second movie, Sims points to Tourism New Zealand research which found The Lord of the Rings had "considerable influence on international tourism to New Zealand".

The study surveyed overseas tourists who were in the country during February and March and found 8 per cent cited The Lord of the Rings as one reason for coming to New Zealand.

Sims says that connection translates into a significant revenue stream for the airline and the country.

"If we can capture that revenue result for the third film we'll be pretty pleased - but that's us being cautious.

"We realistically think it's going to exceed that."

Air NZ is aiming to turn its Middle-earth campaign into increased arrivals from specific markets including the US, Japan and Europe.

"The film has had to work doubly hard out of markets like Japan where the book had no resonance and didn't mean as much to people as it has done in other markets," Sims says.

"But we are now seeing dedicated [Japanese] tour groups being booked to come down and do Lord of the Rings itineraries."

Visitor arrivals from Japan - one of New Zealand's top four tourism markets - have fallen in the past year following the Sars virus.

Sims says a strength of the LOTR promotion is that it appeals to younger, more independent travellers, who are a small but growing sector of the Japanese market.