6 steps to building a swashbuckling airline brand

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Strong promise and Spotless delivery - in the air and beyond

The

Red

Paper Series

6 steps to building a swashbuckling airline brand

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The Red Paper Series

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\ 3 A day in the life of an air traveler\ 3 The need for an airline brand model\ 4 Introducing the 6X model\ 5 Brand Xpectation\ 6 Brand Xperience\ 7 Brand Xpression\ 8 Brand Xternalities\ 9 Brand Xtensibility\ 10 Brand X-Factor\ 11 Summing up\ 11 About the author

A brand is a living entityand it is enriched orundermined cumulativelyover time, the product ofathousand smallgestures.

Michael Eisner,CEO, Disney

6 steps to building a swashbuckling airline brand

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The Red Paper Series

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A day in the life of an air traveler

ohn’s parents were celebrating their 40

th

wedding anniversary and he hadmeticulously planned a surprise party forthem in their London family home. The last stepwas to book the flights for his two year old son,Tim, his wife, Lucy and himself, from Toronto toLondon. This seemed simple enough withexpedia.com.Within seconds, the search results showed morethan ten pages of results, with prices differing byless than $5 in some cases. He ruled out thecheapest options, Air India and SAS, based onthe poor experiences of his friends who hadflown these airlines before. He was debatingbetween British Airways and United Airlines.Though he was a member of both their frequentflyer programs, it didn’t make much difference tohim as they had identical benefits and wereequally difficult to redeem miles from. He hadflown United before and did not found theexperience ordinary. He finally decided to goahead with the British Airways flight, via NewYork, as it was cheaper than the non-stop flight.On the day of the flight, he checked-in online andwas surprised to find out from his boarding passthat his was a code-shared flight run by AmericanAirlines. At the airport, John proceeded to theAmerican terminal for baggage drop, but wastold at the counter the flight was actually beingoperated by American Eagle. John rushed to theother terminal, where regional flights operatedfrom, with Tim in his own arms and the entireluggage being pulled by Lucy.After a hasty baggage drop, it was time to passthrough the grueling security counters. Lucy wasasked to taste the baby milk and was forced tocarry only one bottle of milk on-board, eventhough she mentioned that she’s flying all theway to London. Though, once on the smallEmbraer Regional Jet, they were glad to befinally on their way.Alas, the bliss was short-lived. Half-way into theflight, the pilot announced that due to severeweather conditions at JFK Airport, all flightswere being diverted to Boston. Once they landedin Boston, the plane sat on the tarmac for acouple of hours without any food or water beingserved. Understandably, Tim was wailing bynow. Soon after, the passengers were able toalight, as the weather in New York showed nosigns of easing up. At this rate, John wouldcertainly miss his connecting flight to London. Atthe terminal, the airline served them some food –some unknown meat topped with a squishybrown liquid and neon green vegetables. Just asthey were finishing their meal, John realized thatthere was a British Airways flight leaving forLondon from Boston in an hour.He rushed to the gate agent to explain hissituation, and requested to be put on the flight.But all his pleas went in vain. That flight wasalready overbooked. In the end, he ended upwaiting another two hours before his originalflight took off for New York. The flight toLondon was long gone. The next one was in eighthours, and John, Lucy and Tim had no choice butto wait it out. It wasn’t the ideal start to theirLondon trip, and the anniversary celebrationsremained a distant thought.-----------------------------------------------------------

Though this story may seem like an exception,it’s becoming the norm these days in the airlineindustry. The narrative is based on true events(airline names have been changed) and eachelement can be attributed to a different aspect of the brand. Be it John rejecting the first couple of choices due to what he had heard from his friends or the lack of distinction between loyalty programs. Such an industry state calls for someintrospection.

The need for an airline brand model

f asked to do so, most executives would putbranding as an activity in Stephen Covey’s2

nd

quadrant: important, not urgent.Importance is what keeps brand management onan executive’s agenda, but the lack of urgency

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