Billboards seek air power deal
If you have flown into Wellington Airport recently or walked around the city, you may have noticed a series of billboards advertising a military style aircraft.
Featuring a picture of a twin jet engine aircraft with the slogan ‘‘KC-390, the true first responder’’ the billboards are strategically located around the city, including in Whitmore St, in direct line of sight from the Beehive.
Although thousands of people may pass them every day, there is really only one target market.
The billboards were commissioned by Brazilian airline manufacturer Embraer, and are the latest in a campaign by international companies to secure a multimillion-dollar contract to replace New Zealand’s ageing Hercules airlift fleet.
‘‘A military aircraft is not like Coca-Cola, where you advertise on street corners and dairy frontages.
‘‘You have to be a bit more strategic,’’ Scott Arrell, director of business development at Embraer in New Zealand, said.
The advertisements would ‘‘up the awareness’’ of the aircraft, particularly among those in the Government and in the Ministry of Defence as the Government prepared to replace the Hercules fleet, Arrell said.
‘‘It is really just to bring some awareness to the product that Embraer has.’’
The KC-390, a military airlift aircraft, was along the lines of what the Government was seeking to replace the current Hercules fleet, he said.
The three billboards were booked to run for two months from November 2017.
Big decisions
This kind of advertising for military equipment was not unique but the scale of the ads and their proximity to the city was, Adjunct Professor in the faculty of health and environmental sciences at AUT University Peter Greener said.
‘‘For defence equipment of any sort it would be unusual for there to be much in the way of advertising in the past.
‘‘But we are at a point where an awful lot of equipment needs to be replaced and so there are some big decisions to make.’’
Cabinet would ultimately decide which company secured the contract and the advertising would likely be targeted at politicians and officials just as a new government stepped in, Greener said.
Embraer is the third largest aircraft manufacturer in the world and the KC-390 is a new aircraft not yet in use in Brazil.
‘‘So not only is it a departure from the sort of aircraft that potential coalition partners are flying, but it’s yet to be proven in service,’’ Greener said.
A 2016 defence white paper said the nation’s 50-year-old Hercules would need to be replaced by about 2020 at a cost of approximately US$350 million-400 million (NZ$487 million-$557 million).
There are three potential contenders – Hercules, Airbus and Embraer – to replace the airlift fleet which includes five Hercules and two B757s.
Demonstration visits by several aircraft were made in New Zealand last year.
No difference
Defence Minister Ron Mark said he had seen the billboards around Wellington; ‘‘everyone’s seen them’’.
But they would not make any difference to his decision on the replacement aircraft.
‘‘I certainly won’t be making decisions based on who has got the most billboards in town.’’