Watching Bravo’s “Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List” episode last week, I was taken aback by the footage of her and "the gays" on Air New Zealand’s Pink flight to 2008 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. It looked like fun, at least from the 12 minutes shown on TV. Then the jarring thought hit me that this was a 14-hour flight from San Francisco to Sydney. Ouch!
I’m a huge Kathy Griffin fan. I’ve watched every episode of her reality show and even have her as a Tivo keyword. I’ve seen her last two performances in Chicago and have tickets to her return in October. Still, as I watched the video clips and the pre-board performances, entertaining as they were, the half-day spectacle seemed like it would have been anything but a vacation to me.
Anyway, I’m not the target consumer for “Pink Flight.”
Still, the trip garnered a lot of positive comments and both pre- and post-trip media coverage. It seems like we can expect images of that jet with a pink boa and ostrich eyelashes again on the tarmac again next spring.
We had our differences of opinion on this blog when “Pink Flight” was announced last fall. It’s still disputed whether the concept and promotion was “cringeworthy” or just “campy.” And that further supports what we’ve stated often on this site. There is no cookie cutter approach to marketing to the LGBT market.
I stand by my original post last fall that its pointless to argue the merits of a trip like “Pink Flight” given the diversity of our community. It was considered a success, judging from the reports I’ve seen. But the launch was something that needed more than a press release — if a press release at all — to convey the promotion’s camp and irreverence. It was an announcement best conveyed through viral marketing and video postings.
Interestingly enough, post-flight searches on the trip turn up a number of tongue-in-cheek blog postings, “stewardess” photos like the one above, and more than its share of video clips on YouTube, including excerpts from “D-List.”
News clips on YouTube range from a 30-second spot to a five-minute piece from CBS News on Logo, below.
Those are the tools to sell the experience of “Pink Flight.” Also, I saw that the language in Pink Flight’s January announcement about Kathy Griffin’s participation was milder than the September announcement in which I assume some PR person thought words like “girlfriend” and “fabulous” were gay SEO magnets.
Well, you live and learn. And sometimes you wear a pink boa just because its fierce.
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