Why do you think airlines spend so much money on these safety videos when they're almost exclusively shown to people who are already customers of the airline? The 2m YouTube example you gave is great, but 1. that's probably an exception to most safety videos and 2. the vast majority of safety video views are probably uninterested folks in cramped seats with earphones in. Do you think that's the best use of marketing dollars? What about making the actual product (flight experience) better?

Good question. I asked myself the same thing. Since airlines are mandated to produce a safety video regardless, the ROI they really have to assess is against that incremental spend on making the video cinematic/entertaining. And if you factor in that potential to go viral and get good PR from it, as well as the fact that they can produce a video once and reuse possibly for X years, the incremental investment doesn’t sound that unappealing. Also: traditional methods of advertising (say renting a billboard) are just as expensive, if not more.

> Why do you think airlines spend so much money on these safety videos when they're almost exclusively shown to people who are already customers of the airline?

It reinforces the brand. Virgin gets to show it's sexy. ANA that it's fun but sophisticated. United that it has four neurons firing across the enterprise.

I have no special information, but some of these seem targeted at least partially to internal marketing and morale. For instance, I have seen what appear to be employees (probably union members) delivering a lot of these lines.

I would expect it's at least slightly better for morale, recruiting, and retention. I also expect that executives and middle managers move to use these as an opportunity to reinforce corporate values, whatever that means to them.