Air N.Z. targets London commuters

Press, 4 February 1989, Page 17

Air N.Z. targets London commuters

By

TONY VERDON

London Correspondent. Air New Zealand is taking advantage of the grim, mid-winter lot of London Underground commuters in a big new advertising campaign. Huge posters have gone up oh tube platforms promising "magic season” offers bringing New Zealand within easy reach of Londoners. “Here you are, stuck in ’the land of the long wait for the tube’. ” it tells travellers on London’s notoriously over-crowded Underground system. “Wouldn’t you rather be in the Land of the Long White Cloud?” As platform speakers announced the latest reason for delayed Central Line trains, the hint

of a Southern Hemisphere summer or autumn caught the attentin of many 1 packed on to the platform at the Chancery Lane tube station: "Picture yourself on a deserted South Pacific Beach where noise is a foreign word. In a country well known as a haven of pure air and water. Where the wind has travelled over a thousand miles of ocean, rather than down a dark winding tube tunnel,” regail the Air New Zealand posters. “See an Underground that isn’t lit by fluorescent bulbs. An underground cave where the ceiling is studded by a million glowworms, whose light reflects into a subterranean river.” Tube travellers are

urged to fly to New Zealand to “hear the roar of an errupting geyser rather that the din of a distant busker.” The airline is promoting “Kiwi hospitality” and promises travellers “a country where the only congestion is caused by a sheepdog driving its flock across the road.” Visitors are promised “a trip to the other side of the world that won’t cost you the earth.” The advertising campaign is promoting flights to New Zealand during April, May and June, when the return excurslore fare from London is $2780. The campaign links the fare with special discounts on accommodation and car hire.