What is Cockpit Karaoke and how can it be a lesson for your brand?

We’ve all experienced the recent explosion of content marketing among many of the world’s leading brands. Whether they’re aiming to increase site-traffic and searchability, to generate leads, advocacy, or just increase their social media presence, brands have seen that the positive benefits of content marketing far outweigh the costs.

Nothing typifies this more than a recent piece of video content from Air New Zealand. In it, they play off the current popularity of comedian James Corden’s carpool karaoke, where he and a celebrity sing along to songs while driving a car.

Air New Zealand challenged Corden in a “pitch” to bring his segment to one of their planes for Cockpit Karaoke, and, in less than a week, the video has over 669,000 views, far exceeding the views of any of its other recent videos.

The content doesn’t feature any product focus or call to action, yet it achieved almost instant virality, leading to huge numbers of people engaging with the Air NZ brand. Whether or not Corden even accepts the challenge doesn’t even matter – consumers are now more aware of the brand and are more likely to think positively of it.

What’s key for brands trying to get into content is to make sure that they’re joining in existing conversations that are relevant to them and playing to their strengths. While Cockpit Karaoke is relevant to Air New Zealand, it might not work for something like a makeup company. Instead it might work for them to use singers or other talent say, in a content series about makeup tutorials.

Wherever possible, brands should be jumping on trending topics or viral videos, and be using relevant news and events as a means of connecting with audiences. Essentially, wherever there’s a conversation going that’s relevant to them, brands need to be creating content to keep up the conversation. And whether this comes in the form of a viral video or just a quick meme, if it is done well, consumers will respond to it.