Say ‘Yes’ to YouTube: Light In-Flight Entertainment a Sudden Sensation
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APEX Insight: YouTube is not just for whiling away time on the ground, it also makes for great in-flight entertainment. This summer, Emirates introduced content from popular YouTubers Cute Girl Hairstyles, Dude Perfect and Crash Course, while British Airways took a cue from the contagion of cat videos. “We embrace the trend of user-generated content that spawns entertaining and informative YouTube personalities,” says Patrick Brannelly, divisional vice-president, Customer Experience at Emirates. “They make our entertainment choices more vibrant.”
This article originally appeared in The APEX EXPO Daily Experience – Day Two.
Cute Girls Hairstyles, a YouTube channel that shows a mother taming her twin daughters’ long, straight hair into acrobatic feats like the quadruple-flipped ponytail, double waterfall braid or wrap-around Dutch pancake braid, is far from traditional in-flight entertainment. But to Emirates, who brought the hairstyle tutorials on board along with other YouTube channels, it was a strategic decision to provide some lighter entertainment fare.
“We embrace the trend of user-generated content that spawns entertaining and informative YouTube personalities,” says Patrick Brannelly, divisional vice-president, Customer Experience at Emirates. “They make our entertainment choices more vibrant.”
“We embrace the trend of user-generated content that spawns entertaining and informative YouTube personalities.” – Patrick Brannelly, Emirates
In a meta-twist, Emirates invited the Cute Girls Hairstyles twins on a trip to Dubai, flying the girls and their family in an A380 and touring them around the hub city’s tourist sites. The whole trip was recorded and broadcast to the duo’s 1.8 million subscribers. It even involved an Emirates hair tutorial, transforming the twins into official brand ambassadors as they modeled the flight crew’s signature red pillbox hat with hair styled in a low French twist.
British Airways has also tapped into online video trends for its IFE, focusing on the phenomenon of cat videos. Its in-flight channel, Paws and Relax, displays adorable cats, kittens, dogs and puppies frolicking in shows like BBC’s The Secret Life of Cats and Animal Planet’s, America’s Cutest Dog.
“We discovered some scientific research that proves watching images of cute animals can actually lower your heart rate and reduce stress levels,” says Richard D’Cruze, manager of In-Flight Entertainment and Technology at British Airways.
Pew Research Center found, among the videos uploaded online in 2013, 45 percent of them included a pet or an animal, with cats, being especially popular. And it seems that short videos starring animals can evoke just as much emotional range as feature-length dramas and comedies in some people.
“We know that people love watching dogs and cats,” says Laura Lamber from Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, an animal shelter British Airways teamed with for their specialty in-flight channel, “they can make you laugh, smile and cry.”