January 14 2010
Grabaseat Cougar Cheerleaders. Shudder.
posted by Ana Samways at 3:40 pmAlthough the term cougar is tired and degrading Grabaseat are using it in their Cougar Pride promotion. The Air New Zealand site is looking for 60 women who consider themselves “cougars” to attend the NZI Sevens in Wellington as their cougar cheerleaders. To enter, women over 35 must enter their details including a photo. Tackiness aside, what do the winners win? Apparently tickets to the sold-out Wellington event and “cougar costumes and the equipment to make enough noise to attract the attention of young males” but the women will have to fork out for there own flights.
The video to promote the promotion uses the equally tired wildlife narration parody angle…
January 14th, 2010 at 3:44 pm
Its bloody funny!
January 14th, 2010 at 3:46 pm
It’s face melting.
January 14th, 2010 at 3:47 pm
I like it. It just FUN!! Go the sevens and go grabaseat for given the cougars some well deserved tickets. I am sure they will have a good time. Unlike any haters that wouldn’t go to the Wellingtown sevens anyway!
January 14th, 2010 at 3:47 pm
Lame.
January 14th, 2010 at 3:51 pm
You boys who made the ad should really say so…
January 14th, 2010 at 3:57 pm
Degrading and more then a little try hard.Not an inspired campaign by any means.
January 14th, 2010 at 3:58 pm
Totally sick of the cougar thing. It’s boring and stupid. Over it.
The ad’s just kinda insulting to women as well.
January 14th, 2010 at 4:01 pm
Boring, cliched and mildly offensive but mainly boring.
January 14th, 2010 at 4:11 pm
I’m just glad that 35 isn’t (quite) old enough to be a cougar…
Phew.
January 14th, 2010 at 4:37 pm
Huge miscalculation by Air NZ after a superbly cheeky “Nothing to Hide” campaign.
Swap the sexes in the commercial and then see how well it plays.
January 15th, 2010 at 6:09 am
Someone compos mentis please explain what is funny about this. Didn’t anyone involved ever speak out and confess “I am wincing with embarrassment over my involvement with this diabolical shit”? And cougars? The ad wankers and marketers involved in this dribble are surely the only desperate bitches here.
January 15th, 2010 at 7:01 am
That was a weak video but breathe into a paper bag Clint.
January 15th, 2010 at 8:39 am
Actually, I quite liked it.
January 15th, 2010 at 9:11 am
Also… what’s with this term ‘hater’, invariably used to defend and excuse the indefensible. If mediocrity was a religion, using ‘hater’ would be like hollering ‘infidel’.
January 15th, 2010 at 9:26 am
Why not give tickets to the male equivalent that is, over 35 male looking for younger women?
January 15th, 2010 at 10:30 am
Can somebody tell me what a Cougar has to do with someone wanting to book a plane ticket?
Seems to me there’s a major disconnect going on there.
Thought parts of it were a bit funny, but not side-splitting.
January 15th, 2010 at 10:33 am
Oh right… it’s for the Cougar cheerleaders.
An ad that needs to be explained via other media.
Excellent.
January 15th, 2010 at 10:48 am
Was the head cougar smuggling peanuts at 1:18?
One or two elements were mildly amusing, but overall it was pretty sad. Can’t believe Air New Zealand aren’t kicking in for flights as well. An airline offering prizes, which you may then have to buy airline tickets for. Is that dumb… or brilliant?
January 15th, 2010 at 11:59 am
This seems to have been the perfect storm of cougar-harrassed young creatives getting their heads together with their cougar-jilted account bosses to create that tired old wildlife-doco rip-off that somehow morphs into a PSA (every other young man is a p addict? Srsly?). Maybe if you ad boys are going to take extract the urine, maybe you should do it from yourselves. I’m thinking your costumes at the sevens could be something like those worn by the guys in “The Yes Men”.
January 15th, 2010 at 2:56 pm
I find it strange that an AirNZ competition requires winners to purchase their own flights. Surely, if nothing else, an airline would be able to provide those.
January 15th, 2010 at 4:07 pm
Try reversing the gender roles – a 45 year old man pulling a 20-something women out of a club probably wouldn’t go down so well. And what’s with the P reference? Ad-wankiness at it’s best.
January 16th, 2010 at 10:38 am
Anyone tried to book plane tickets to Wellington around 7s week lately?
NB honestly I thought the ad was harmless enough and worth a few giggles. Better than that ‘que sera sera’ parody car ad that’s doing the rounds anyway.
January 17th, 2010 at 8:55 am
Bottom line is that it was interesting enough to look at. To the up tight, grabaseat !
January 17th, 2010 at 8:58 am
great stuff i loved it. it a good laugh come on all you ad “haters” lighten up well done air nz
January 17th, 2010 at 11:23 am
It’s quite simple. We don’t hate ads, we just want them to be good, and expect a lot better. And maybe even funny.
January 17th, 2010 at 11:23 am
At the very least, not embarrassing.
January 18th, 2010 at 5:14 pm
I agree with Brett, its more entertaining than most of the other ads out there, out of the box and yes un-PC, but everyone is over PC ads, Its a joke, get over it.