In the aftermath Air New Zealand’s successful Nothing to Hide television and print campaign, Air NZ launched a viral-ready Cougar Pride advertisement through December 2009 and January 2010 that featured a David Attenborough style mocumentary detailing the (apparent) desperate single life of the slightly older NZ female population. Perhaps their campaign was inspired by the aggressive 30-something types that plague the ranks of their female cabin crew.
The campaign was cancelled on January 18th after a massive backlash.
Air New Zealand Cougar
The GrabaSeat campaign was part of the NZI Sevens rugby tournament held in Wellington over the 5th and 6th of February. The campaign encourages 35-plus-year-old women to send in photographs of themselves out on the town with their “cougar mates” to go in the draw to win a flight and ticket to the event. Winning victims were to be given cougar costumes and equipment so that they could attract the attention of young males.
The Air NZ video at the center of the controversy introduces the cougar as a female that is “too old to be your girlfriend [and] too young to be your mother” – although definitions of the word vary. One recurring theme is their insatiable need to sexually conquer those under the age of 25. The term has become synonymous with sexually aggressive older women on the hunt for younger men; and its use can be used in a derogatory way, or a means of empowerment.
American ABC’s Cougar Town starring Courteney Cox has given cougar-like behaviour unprecedented credibility and is blamed for the resurgence in the number of older women dolled up as drag queens scaring younger men into submission.
The Air NZ campaign shows a so-called cougar “starving itself on sparse vegetation during the day then hunting large slabs of rare meat at night “by stalking young men at a bar. The voiceover goes on to say that “…despite the man’s attempts to ward off the woman’s advances, the cougar has not tasted fresh meat for days, and drags her prey to an inner-city flat often forcing them to listen to Enya or the Eurythmics”. According to the mocumentary, cougars – aged in their 30s, 40s and 50s, – routinely prey on men in their 20s, many who “pretend to be gay” to avoid them.
New Zealand Rape Prevention Education’s director and women’s advocate, Kim McGregor, has said that “We have had complaints from male survivors who have been raped by women and they are very distressed that their situation is being laughed at and made out to be humorous”. She goes on to tell the New Zealand Herald that “…they find it degrading and that it is encouraging potentially harmful behaviour, so [the] question is… why is [our] national carrier promoting sexually predatory behaviour?” She also claims that a large number of Air NZ staff were concerned about the campaign.
An Air New Zealand spokeswoman said the campaign was supposed to be “light-hearted” but some older women had “taken a bit of offence to it”. There is no press release response to their campaign on their website.
The Cougar campaign was developed at .99 Auckland, the same team behind the “Nothing To Hide” campaign. Perhaps this marketing blunder was part of a broader effort to drag the airline’s legacy brand image to closer match the vibrant nature of its Australian competitors? Perhaps Air NZ have adopted the Ryanair style of “any publicity is good publicity” marketing?
Interestingly, there’s no common word to describe the sexually aggressive males that prey on younger females. I’m not sure that a campaign portraying the sexually aggressive night-life of single males searching out “younger meat” would be well received at all. Why should it be any different with females?
Despite all the controversy, the advert was almost clever (by no means original) and it was funny. You’ll always offend somebody. It was the trashy and tacky videos posted to YouTube that are more likely to offend. View their trashy video below.
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