Exploitation Of Hawaii Flights | Marketing Overboard

Have you had enough strange marketing hype from Hawaii-centric airlines? From endless hawking of credit card offers to fake Hawaii canned water and the unforgettable, ukulele incident. And remember some of the most expensive Hawaii print advertising ever in those now gone island maps.

How marketing onboard Hawaii flights took a definite turn for the worse.

When a non-commercial Hula performance broke out spontaneously a decade ago, who knew it would turn into a free-for-all commercial? That was followed by, among other things, endless and annoying credit card offers on Hawaiian Air flights with bonus miles if you sign up during the flight. It’s embarrassing to see our highly regarded flight attendants marching up and down the aisles like that.

Also read Shtick on Hawaii Flights Started With Hula, Then Devolved which includes a fascinating video of the original hula performance.

We suppose next, we can expect to see more branded products, wherein airlines will partner with other brands to leverage one another for financial gain. What’s different from the original surprise hula performance is that it was done without marketing of any kind.

We don’t have a good feeling about merchandising to us as captive audiences at 38,000 feet. But, it may just be the way of the future.

The ukulele flight that won’t go away.

An article from a mainland news publication gave the impression that if you weren’t onboard the Southwest flight with 175 people “questionably playing” ukulele for five hours across the Pacific (and for the first time), you somehow missed just how wonderful an event it was. Really?

What would your reaction have been to find a ukulele on your seat at the start of a long journey to Hawaii? We were thinking of looking for our active noise canceling headsets perhaps?

It was more of the latest unadulterated hype of products and Hawaii flights combined. This one is between Guitar Center and Southwest Airlines. The publication accused naysayers who criticized the “cheerful promotion,” as they put it, of being “a gimmick worse than death.” The publication accused naysayers who criticized the “cheerful promotion” of being “a gimmick worse than death” of being “knee-jerk reactors.” They said, “This experience, while a commercial for two mega corporations, was a harmonious, unique memory for a full flight of passengers inbound for Hawaii.” Oh puh-leeze!

Was this a “unique memory for a full flight of passengers inbound for Hawaii?” 

The Guitar Center employees on board said it was wonderful. Well, what do you expect? The ukuleles were on the seats as the passengers boarded the flight from Long Beach to Honolulu. That means the ukes were out and used for the entire flight. Here’s a thought. What if the promotion, lessons, and ukes had stayed stored away until somewhere towards the end of the flight? Very thoughtful.

Amtrak said…

We haven’t been alone in our dislike for gimmicks on flights to Hawaii. It seems like the airlines will stoop to anything in that regard. Others have said that the ukulele flight was “the stuff of nightmares” and “hell above earth.” Even usually silent Amtrak had at it, saying, “btw we have a quiet car.”

Is Hawaiian Air “canning” Jason Momoa fake Hawaii water?

No one can forget that Jason Momoa not long ago masqueraded as a Hawaiian flight attendant to promote his Mananalu Pure Water. That water is sourced from Bozeman, Montana, Montebello, California, and Norfolk, Nebraska. And not from Hawaii, as its name implies.

Your editor, Jeff Tucker, had multiple flights on Hawaiian Airlines last week, both in economy and first class (first-hand reviews are coming, and be prepared for some real surprises). Up in first class, Mananalu water had been removed from the beverage menu. When Jeff asked the flight attendant about it, he offered to give him one from the Pau Hana cart in economy, but Jeff declined.

Hawaiian has long-served Hawaiian Springs water from large plastic bottles poured into plastic cups in all classes of service. That water is authentic “Hawaiian artesian water bottled exclusively at the source.”

The aluminum containers from Mananalu aren’t sustainable or environmentally appropriate. Reusable water containers are the most sustainable. There remains controversy about aluminum safety (we don’t know if Mananalu water is lined or unlined, both of which have potential issues).

Making these aluminum cans uses vast amounts of electricity and produces more than four times the carbon dioxide emissions compared with a plastic bottle of the same size. While theoretically recyclable, the process is not dependable; more often than not, these end up in landfills.