Cheeky safety video takes off in popularity

Air New Zealand's 'bare essentials' video has become a YouTube hit. Photo / Supplied

Air New Zealand's latest marketing campaign has got under the skin of internet users.

Two videos featuring staff wearing nothing but body-paint have quickly become New Zealand's most popular YouTube clips - and a third is soaring in popularity.

A pre-flight safety video featuring body-painted cabin crew running through emergency drills has become the most watched Kiwi-made video on the site in little over a week.

The Bare Essentials video, which screens on Boeing 737s on domestic routes, had been viewed almost 3.9 million times by Friday lunchtime.

Next is Nothing to Hide, the TV ad that inspired it.

It features body-painted staff, including chief executive Rob Fyfe, hard at work and is soundtracked by Gin Wigmore's jaunty song I've Got You Under My Skin.

The remaining spots in New Zealand's YouTube top five are filled by Alien Sea Creature Metropolis, a video filmed at a beach north of Levin featuring a piece of flotsam covered in crustaceans.

In fourth place is a traditional haka performed at the Massey University Maori Studies graduation show in 2006.

Rounding out the top five is a Kiwi entry in a competition to find the most innovative way to open a Cadbury's Creme Egg.

Air NZ could soon have a third entry in the top five after this week's release of a blooper reel from the safety video shoot.

It features tongue-tied moments, oxygen masks playing up and several beeped-out swear words.

In one part, an air hostess has her hand moved to cover sensitive areas. She later says: "Hoist them up, hold on" while adjusting her cleavage.

More than 320,000 people had viewed the clip by Friday lunchtime.

Air NZ marketing boss Steve Bayliss was surprised by the amount of global publicity the original ad has generated. His team had decided they would be "pretty darn happy" with one million YouTube views.

The site was founded in a garage in California in 2005 and now hosts hundreds of millions of users everyday. More than 20 hours of content are uploaded every minute.

Spokeswoman Lucinda Barlow said its popularity was a "global cultural phenomenon".

"YouTube is the watercooler or the town square of today. It's where people go to share experiences, express their views, be entertained."

Media commentator and associate professor Martin Hirst said YouTube was one of several social networking sites driving a shift in the way "entertainment, information, news and current affairs are consumed".

Techno-savvy youth were no longer accessing information via "grown-up" mediums, such as magazines, newspapers and the nightly news, preferring computers or mobile phones.

"You don't have to be at home sitting in front of a TV screen," Hirst said. "You can watch it anytime, and as often as you like. You can share it with people, and write silly comments about it."

* Top five Kiwi YouTube hits

Bare Essentials of Safety from Air New Zealand
3.89 million views - watch it here

Air New Zealand staff have nothing to hide
3.34 million view - watch it here

Alien Sea Creature Metropolis
3.16 million views - watch it here

Maori Haka
2.15 million views - watch it here

Creme That Egg!
1.48 million views - watch it here