Promotional Tactics for Airlines

Introduction

The marketing strategic planning provides an opportunity to all the multinational corporate firms to develop effective tactics to promote the organisations and have successful branding strategy in order to maximise the brand visibility in the market (Hult and Ketchen, 2017). The aim of the study is to analyse the marketing strategic planning of the organisational and recommend some suitable suggestions for successful promotional activities of the company. In this study, the marketing strategic planning of the airline industry will be evaluated, where the airline industry is growing rapidly across the globe and it has positive contribution on economic growth of the country. In the recent era of globalisation, the demand for the airline industry is increasing at a rapid rate and there is intense competition due to presence of different airline companies. In such situation, there is the trend of developing effective marketing mix strategic planning in the air line industry, where the companies like British Airways and Air Canada aim to restructuring their marketing tactics so that they can gain high market share an attract the audiences for making effective decision to travel through their airlines (Goetz and Sutton, 2017). In this study, it would be possible to identify the marketing tactics of British Airways and recommend some suitable solutions so that the airline company can improve branding and increase brand visibility in the market to strengthen their customer’s base in near future.

Marketing concepts of British Airways

British Airways is the flag carrier airline of the United Kingdom, which is the second largest airline in the UK. The airline company is efficient to serve the customers in an innovative way to satisfy the consumers and retain them for long run. The customer’s service is efficient which provides a scope to the company to maximise their profitability and sales volume in the market and in this regard, the company maximised their revenue in the last year over £13500 million and the net revenue generation was also positive (British Airways, 2019). Hereby, the company has financial strength and string brand name in the airline industry across the globe. Profitability of the fir in the last year was approximately over £1500 million and there is strong employee base with more than 39000 employees. Hereby, the company utilises brand image for the promotion of the services in the market. The brand image of the firm British airways is high and the CEO and the Board of Directors utilise the brand image positively for successful branding in the airline industry across the globe. The musical theme of the company is “The Flower Duet” and the slogan “The World’s favourite Airline” is effective advertisement strategy of the company which are helpful to attract the audiences and travellers towards the services of the company in the market. Additionally, there are other advertising slogan which are "We'll Take More Care of You", and "Fly the Flag". “Face” campaign is another initiative by the company British Airways through which the company aims at the customers and retain them for long run. In 2011, the company has launched the biggest advertisement campaigning where the slogan is "To Fly. To Serve". The company is the official airline of the Wimbledon Championship tennis tournament, 2012 Summer Olympics and Paralympics and these activities are also effective for successful promotion of the brand. Hereby, the company is efficient for successful branding through designing the logo, creating musical slogan and advertisement campaigning (British Airways, 2019).

Marketing strategic planning of British Airways

The marketing strategic planning is mandatory for the airline industry, where there is intense competition and it provides an opportunity to the organisations to develop effective tactic to promote the services in the airline industry across the globe and strengthen their customer’s base for future. There is product and pricing strategy where the British Airways aim to promote their business across the world. The company is efficient to serve the customers innovatively with variety of luxury services, fringe services and others in the flights (Goetz and Sutton, 2017). On the other hand, there are different services such as economy, premium economy, executive and first class, where there are different pricing of the tickets from which the customers can select their tickets according to their choice and budget. Hereby, diversify products and services as well as different pricing policies are the major marketing principles of the brand British Airways, where the company is successful to target different segment of customers and retain them for long run (Abdelghany, A. and Abdelghany, K., 2016). The company also focuses on placing strategy and promotional activities through advertisement and sponsorship in order to improve branding and maximise brand image in the market, so that the customers can identify the services of British Airways and make effective reservations for enjoying the airline services.

On the other hand, there are different loyalty programs, which are also advertisement strategy of the company and in this regard, the loyalty program is called the Executive Club, includes access to special lounges and dedicated "fast" queues. There is Premium incentive programs where the audiences can join for loyalty program and get executive club members and premium cabins. There are different passenger seats such as business class, first class passengers and executive club members and theses loyalty programs are effective to strengthen their customers base and maximise customers satisfaction in long run. In addition to this, in 2011, British Airways accepted merger with Iberia which combines the rebranding of Air Miles, BA Miles and Iberia which is also an effective initiative of the company to strengthen their customer’s base and promote the service efficiently in the market. In addition to this, High Life magazine is the British Airways in-flight magazine which is available to the customers across the cabins and aircrafts. High Life hop magazine is another important shopping magazine, from which the customers can make effective purchase decision according to their choice and preferences. First life is a complimentary magazine for the customers were there is a he range of topics including fashion, technology and trends in the recent years. Business life is also another complimentary magazine to target the business travellers and frequent flyers. These are the magazines, through which the organisation aims to attract the audiences and strengthen their customer’s base for near future.

Marketing principles applied in the organisation

There is different marketing planning through which the multinational corporate organisations try to promote their organisational products and services for long run and in this regard the marketing principles are such as 7Ps, STP analysis and marketing research, which are effective for all the organisations to have successful branding and promote the services in the market (Key and Czaplewski, 2017). The airline industry in the rennet era of globalisation also focus on developing effective marketing principles to attract the audiences so that they can promote the organisational service and expand the business sustainably. The British Airways are also utilising the marketing principles of 7Ps and STP through which it is possible for the company to target the right audiences and retain them for long run. Segmentation, targeting and positioning strategy are important for the company, where the company is efficient to identify the certain individuals among the general public across the globe in order to deliver high quality services (Brueckner and Flores-Fillol, 2020). There are four majorities of services, provided by British Airways, which are economy, premium economy, executives and first class. The company adopts multi segment concentration marketing strategy for targeting a huge variety of customers according to their economic status, age and personal preferences. For the economy class, the company targets the domestic and Europe and International flights in the UK and prefer the people, both in urban and rural and also target all the male female and kids. Low income class is targeted for the economic class where the company also chooses the customers who prefer regular travel and can afford the service.

For the first class services, the company targets the selected international flights customers, urban areas, middle age and old age person, high economic class and the people who prefer luxurious travel. For the executive club, the company also targets the high income group and middle aged people so that it is possible to retain them for long run. Hereby, the organisation British Airways prefer to develop the strategy of multi segmented marketing planning in order to target different customers with different personality, lifestyle and needs. After segmentation and targeting, the company aims at positioning the band in the market, were the positioning strategy of the company are such as highly efficient service delivery, low price for the series and service diversity as well as branding, where the firm is able to establish the business in the market and target the passengers successfully (Eaton, 2017). British Airways focuses on delivering highly efficient services to maximise the values for the customers, so that the customers can fulfil their choice and preferences and be satisfied after getting special treatment and services in the airline. On the other hand, for positioning the brand in the market ad attracting the target audiences, the company diversify the services into four groups which are economy, premium economy, executive and first class so that, the customers have the option to choose the right services according to their preferences and budget constraint. Additionally, the company British Airways also focuses on setting affordable price for the customers and develop quality programs to get special services. Hereby the positioning strategy of the company is effective to target the customers and retain them for long run.

On the other hand, the company also focuses on 7P marketing mix strategic planning n order to establish the business. The factors under the 7P marketing mix strategic planning are such as product, price, promotion, placing, physical evidence, people and process which are contributing factors to promote the organisational products or services in the market. In this context, the organisation focuses on the product category, where 298 fleet size and efficient services of the company satisfy the passengers. The British airways try to satisfy all the customers by fulfilling their choice and preferences. In this regard, it provides flight tickets at reasonable price to satisfy the customers to fly from one destination to another. Additionally, excellence schedule of the flights and connections with the busy airports are effective which enhances the service of the company and this further helps to satisfy the passengers where the customers can fulfil their needs and preferences. On the other hand, the customer’s service, support and in-flight services as well as hot and fresh meals, drinks and comfortable seats are effective services that improve customer service where the company British Airways is efficient to manage their passengers and create values for hem by providing efficient service to all the passengers.

Pricing is another component under the 7P marketing mix strategic planning, where the company, where the main focus on British Airways is to improve affordability of the customers through setting lower price (Sinha, 2019). The company introduced the economy class which has low price tickets for the passengers and there is medium valued pricing strategy for those people, who require some fringe benefits in the flight and there is premium pricing strategy for the people who like travel with all the high class benefits in the airline services. Hereby, there are different pricing policies which are effective to target different segment of customers and provide them different options for choosing the best possible option for travel according to the needs and preferences as well as budget of the customers (Baumeister and Onkila, 2017). On the other hand, there are different services which are economy, premium economy, executive and first class which further enhance the variability of the services in the organisation British Airways.

Placing is another factor under the marketing mixes strategic planning, that the airline industry focuses for improving their distribution network across the globe. In this regard, British Airways improves their placing activities by developing merger and acquisition with most of the important destinations across the world, so that the customer can access their service. This is also one of the effete strategic planning for successful branding and marketing of the organisational airline services in the airline industry. It joined with various airport authorities as well as the company operates their business operational activities through proper cooperation with the call centres, online websites and the travel agents which are effective to place the brand in the market efficiently (Shaw, 2016). Promotion is another factor which is one of the important contributing factors in achieving the organisational success (Goetz and Sutton, 2017). In this regard, the major innovation of the company is the creation of mobile application which is for all the customers who can manage their account and make effective reservations easily through the Smartphone applications get fringe benefits. For promoting the service of the airline, this initiative is effective for the company where it is successful to target the audiences and retain them for long run through successful promotion of the airline services. Another major promotional activity off the firm is providing the special flight tickets at reasonable price for special occasions by making the tickets which is “Christmas Gift Voucher”. This is another scheme through which the company aims to promote the organisation and achieve future success. On the other hand, for successful promotion, the company also chooses sponsorship technique where some celebrities like Aditya Zutshi and Golfer Justin Rose are the part of the company as a brand ambassador. Hereby, through the promotional activities, the organisation aims to target the customers and maximise their values in long run.

Explaining the relationships of the marketing functions to other functional areas in organisations

The organisational functions of the British Airways are,

Production and service unit

Customer’s service department

Investment and research

Marketing department

Financial department

Management board

Sales management

Flight operation and engineering management

Human resource management

The company aims at running the organisational functions of human resource management, investment and research, financial management, sales management, flight operation management and engineering service excellence, customer service management and service development (Kingsnorth, 2019). These functions are linked with the marketing activities of the organisation. The production and service unit management is one of the effective organisational functions which are linked with the marketing strategy of product variety, where the organisation British Airways aims at developing suitable service and deliver diversify services to the customers according to their needs and preferences. Due to the marketing strategy of service innovation in order to satisfy the customers, the company develops the organisational functions of managing service and improving customers service activities so that it is possible to achieve the aim of serving the customers by creativity and service innovation (Brueckner and Flores-Fillol, 2020). In this regard, the mobile application for handling the organisational page for bookings as well as continuous 24*7 support to the customers are effective planning to run the functions of service innovation and fulfil the marketing objective of delivering excellent services to all the customers. In addition to this, marketing department is playing crucial functions in the organisation in order to manage the marketing tactics.

The marketing managers are responsible to promote the brand in the international airline industry and it is linked with the organisational marketing strategy of promotion, where the firm focus on advertisement, designing organisational logo and creating slogan for successful promotion of the business. On the other hand, the major function of the company British Airways is human resource management, where the organisation aims to handle the employees in the workplace and lead them towards achieving success by service innovation and delivering quality care and efficient services to all the customers and in this regard, this is also linked with the marketing mix strategic planning where people management is crucial and the firm in this regard, it must focus on managing people through providing them freedom to work, giving them suitable organisational environment and monetary and non-monetary rewards so that the employees are motivated and they try to contribute positively in achieving the organisational aims and objectives (Williams, 2017). Flight operation and engineering management is also another crucial function in British Airways, where it is linked with the marketing tactics of physical evidence and process innovation where the engineering team is efficient to handle the service and satisfy the customers of the company in long run.

Conclusion and recommendations

The organisation British Airways is efficient to develop effective marketing mix strategic planning through product and pricing strategy. In this regard, high quality products and efficient in flight services are the major strategy of the company to target the passengers and apart from that, as per the pricing strategy, there are different pricing options, from which the customers can choose the services according to their preferences and budget. Additionally, there are branding through advertisement and slogan and loyalty card programs which are also attractive for the customers to identify the brand and access the services in the market. On the other hand, the company is also efficient to develop the mobile application for the customers across the globe, where the passengers can reserve their seats to enjoy the in flight services according to their choices. In order to improve the marketing tactics of the organisation, it is necessary to develop people management strategy, so that it is possible to improve the performance and lead the experience staff towards achieving future success. Apart from that, the organisation needs to send personalise email to the customers to retain the old as well as new customers in the market. On the other hand, the business needs to arrange more social campaigning through social media for successful utilisation of the social media platform and improve engagement with the social communities across the globe. Proper advertisement on social media and promotional social campaigning would be beneficial to target and attract more passengers across the world and fulfil the organisational objective of becoming the best company in the global airline industry.

Reference List

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