Skift Take

Surely the best airline marketing campaign of 2012.

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To say that Air New Zealand is clearly milking it is an understatement. And why not? The national airline of the Kiwi country is the partner airline for hugely hyped December’s debut of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, the first of three movies in Peter Jackson’s prequel to The Lord of the Rings. And the airline (along with the country tourism board) is making sure everyone hears about it, and then uses it to come visit the country that’s the star of this franchise.

To that end, earlier today the airline gave a first glimpse of the Boeing 777-300ER Hobbit livery as the aircraft rolled out of the hangar for the first time. This imagery covers the length of the 240ft aircraft, took six days and nearly 400 man-hours to install the largest ever graphic to be applied to an aircraft.

It will make its maiden flight to Los Angeles, and will be available for public viewing this Saturday Nov 24th, between 1-3pm at the LAX Observation Deck.

Some pics from that livery rollout:

Pic via Weta Workshop, the design shop behind this AirNZ livery design.

Weta Workshop Supervisor Rob Gillies at the unveiling.

Via AirNZ’s Instagram feed.

Via AirNZ’s Instagram feed.

Via AirNZ’s Instagram feed.

 

 

 

And lastly, a time-lapse video of the aircraft getting the Hobbit-treatment:

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Tags: air new zealand, hobbit, new zealand

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