Air New Zealand in Trouble over Cougar Sex Ad

Air New Zealand has drawn local anger over a tourism ad which depicts New Zealand nightlife as "cougars stalking their prey". According to the voiceover, the "cougar" is "too old to be your girlfriend, too young to be your mother", and is shown "starving itself on sparse vegetation during the day then hunting large slabs of meat at night" by stalking younger men (who look like mid-twenties frat guys) at a bar.

New Zealand's Rape Prevention Education is horrified by the ad, saying that it belittles the experience of male rape survivors while simultaneously sending out a false message about the sexual proclivities of New Zealand's women. 

Personally, I don't see how the ad could be taken literally in any sense, though I'm not sure why Air New Zealand would settle on this as its ad campaign. It doesn't fit with any existing image of New Zealand, and, if they're going for a radical re-branding, they may want to think of something a little less bizarre. My main complaint with the ad is that it's not very good.

Meanwhile, the ANZ flight-crew uniform redesign is also getting a bit of pushback, with the dresses described as "making the flight attendants look like drag queens". In my opinion, the new-uniform concept is atrocious, and if I had to look at those uniforms for 17 hours, I'd collapse in tears before we reached the International Date Line. My experience with ANZ staff has always been positive- please don't make me want to avert my eyes each time they walk by- how would I get a new glass of wine?

The ad is real, but could easily be something you'd see on The Gruen Transfer, which has had such memorable parody ads as "Invade New Zealand".

ANZ has come up with some fantastic material in the past, particularly their "Nothing to hide" campaign,  which they actually use for in-flight info, and the flight attendants are all trying not to laugh as the passengers realize what they're watching.

(Thanks, istalvies, for sending this along)

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Controversial Funny Air NZ Cougar Advertisement

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sourced by Jordan Yerman