Got turned on to this Virgin America safety announcement (below) via Rohit Bhargava’s Influential Marketing Blog in his post humouristically entitled: the 12 important things he himself learned reading his own blog. The title is deceiving as Rohit invited 12 guests to post on his blog while he was away bringing into the world his new child (congrats). Rohit’s post is definitely worth a read as it’s filled with good and diverse stories and links. My favourite, Rohit (or should I say Kevin Dugan), is #6: that storytelling and marketing continue to intersect. I’d also invite you to read this post by Dugan on Rome being built by a story…

Meanwhile, back to the original reason for this post, I enjoyed this Virgin America safety announcement video (4 minutes) which the company smartly put up on YouTube (where it currently has had 50,000+ views). If you don’t watch the video, but listen to the deadpan delivery it is already an improvement over other airline messages (my favourite line: “if you are part of the 0.0001% of people that have never operated a seat belt before, it works like this…”). In the end of the day, the safety message is an obligation. But why not use it as an opportunity as opposed to a burden! Well done VA.