Painting Pilot Finishes Off Wordless Billboard

Air New Zealand's running a new campaign called "Is it just a kiwi thing?", characterized by unusual guerrilla stunts. (See cranial billboards. Yes, the PR woman says, those are real tats. I'm shaking my head right now.)

To promote its launch, a B747 pilot alighted upon an unfinished billboard in London, sporting a paintbrush and some splashy blue paint.

The board sported an image of a laughing stewardess and no words. The message he paints on reads, "A lot of people don't realize we fly to LA and Hong Kong. Why wouldn't we? We're going that way anyway."

Fun fact: the stewardess in the ad, and the pilot who paints on the rest of the message, are actual Air New Zealand employees. The latter, Captain Clulow, has flown Air NZ clients for over 37 years. Quotable Clulow: "When I was asked to do this I immediately said yes - it sounded like a good chance to rappel off a tall building and have a bit of fun in the process."

Irreverent and gay. (The synonym for "happy.") By agency Albion.