Getting Essential Safety Information Across to Pax ...
To those criticising humorous / informal flight safety demonstrations:
There is a major problem with strictly formal flight safety demos. Whilst they tick the legal boxes, the sad reality is that many pax simply don't engage with them. Especially at unsociable hours. They are perceived as dry, boring and - literally - a turn-off. Seen 'em before. They simply do not grab attention.
The ultimate objective of a safety demo must be to convey crucial life-saving information to passengers; ticking the legal requirement boxes alone is not sufficient. To this end, there is clear evidence that less formal / humorous flight safety demos DO SUCCEED in drawing and retaining the attention of passengers. The Southwest briefings cited in an earlier post draw laughs but do successfully get the message across. A droning robotic delivery keeps one's attention like the small-print on an insurance policy.
As a piece of anec***al evidence, I contrast the attention paid to the (formal) flight safety demo by passengers aboard a recent flight by a familiar scheduled leisure airline - more than half the pax appeared to take no notice whatsoever - and that noted aboard the return flight. The return flight was operated by CONDOR FLUGDIENST, a German charter airline forming part of the Thomas Cook Group. Their safety video is available for viewing on Youtube in both German and English language versions. Take a look. It is an outstanding piece of engaging film-making with a serious intent. Whilst it is humorous and very entertaining, it achieved almost 100% engagement with the pax on the flight I used. And that is the whole point. It got the message across. Those calling for (dry) formal demos / videos only have it absolutely wrong. Too many pax will totally ignore them.
I'm flying a similar trip next week - out from MAN with a regular leisure carrier, back to MAN with CFG. I will take careful note of the passenger attention to the respective safety videos. I fully expect that the humorous one will again emerge the clear winner.
EDIT: Question: Any idea why site software has censored the word A - N - E - C - D - O - T - A - L ? What am I missing here?