Shashank  Nigam                Robert Cook                    Craig Stark

If you’re looking for cutting edge thought leadership on airport marketing, social media and branding, you’ve come to the right team. If you’re looking to work with a team probably as passionate about airlines as Richard Branson, we’re your team. If you haven’t read about us, you can get acquainted with us here.

We’re available for limited consulting, speaking and writing opportunities. Limited because while we’d love to address all requests, we’ll give our best to those requests we takes up and doesn’t want our attention to be diluted. Please see below the details for each opportunity to work with us.

Consulting

• Are you an airport executive leading the marketing or branding strategy?
• Are you trying to figure out how to attract & convert customers in these difficult times?
• Have heard about Web 2.0 and want to learn how to leverage it for your airport’s brand?
• And of course, how to accomplish all these things within a limited budget?
• Most importantly, how do you prove ROI for generally intangible and long-term branding efforts?

If you answered “Yes” to any of the questions above, you are bound to find our ideas not just progressive but also easily implementable. We will work with you and your team to come up with simple yet effective ways to attract more customers, more often, making them customers. All these steps and more enable sustained brand building.

We consult primarily for airports, as well as individual aviation executives. Additionally, if you’re a brand consultant working with airports or an airport airport practice leader at a brand consultancy, you may be interested in getting in touch with us to gain some perspectives about the unique challenges facing airports too.

If you are interested in engaging us for a consultation, please e-mail us to request an initial phone consult (there is no fee for this), so that it can be determined if the fit is right. Please include as many details as possible in your email, and state whether you’re requesting engagement personally, or on behalf of your company.

Speaking

We’re available for speaking engagements on airport marketing and branding, ranging from 30-45 minute keynotes to panel discussions, as well as day-long workshops. We boil down most marketing and branding initiatives as ultimately leading to three simple goals (a principle he applies in consulting too):

1. Engage a greater number of customers (more contacts with arriving/departing/transiting passengers)
2. Deliver more customer-centric retail & service offers with your airport (increased retail spent)
3. Get customers to generate more revenues for the airport (improved direct and non-aeronautical profits)

Once you send in a speaking request, we’ll cater each session and topic to your requirements, audience composition and the goals of the engagement. You can be assured of highly insightful and engaging content, focus on practical applications and a creative presentation style that encourages lively interaction. All of our sessions are peppered with eye-opening case studies from airlines around the world. Here are some of the topics we’re passionate about and will be willing to consider speaking to your audience about:

1. Building airpoarts brands through recessionary times
2. Using social media to build your brand and increase customer engagement
3. Increasing customer engagement to retain and continually impress customers
4. Lessons for airports from well respected brands from other industries
5. Best marketing and branding practices from leading airports around the world, as applied to your context

To book an engagement, kindly e-mail us with these specific details:

1. Date, time and location of event
2. Name and web site of the sponsoring organization, and contact person
   
3. Type and duration of desired presentation (45-minute keynote, panel discussion, half-day workshop, etc)
4. Estimated audience size (number of attendees) and a profile of the audience
   
5. Topic preference(s)
6. Budget (Travel/Travel+Speaker Fee/Other ideas)

Writing

Shashank is a seasoned and well published writer on airline branding and other related issues. Among other publications, his articles on airline branding have been published by Interbrand’s BrandChannel.com, including a white paper. Moreover, Shashank has also been the contributing author of two books on branding (see acknowledgment page). He has also written a full-page opinion column in Singapore’s The New Paper for over a year. You can see a selection of his articles here.

All this, in addition to writing over 100 articles on airline branding on this blog, which have been read almost 20,000 times and garnered many accolades from industry thought leaders. Gary Leopold, President and CEO of ISM Boston (Emirates’ US agency) refers to SimpliFlying.com as this: “In a world moving increasingly towards specialization, SimpliFlying is the ultimate niche player, placing a total focus on airline marketing and branding. For those in the field this blog is an essential read for its industry coverage, insights and perspective.”

Robert is a experienced executive, having held senior positions in some the world’s leading companies.  Having worked in the aviation industry for over 20 years, he is familiar with many of the key issues affecting airports in today’s economy. He is an accomplished presenter at global airport and retail conferences. He has published many papers and trade articles, and current blogs for Forbes Wheels Up on airport issues, branding and other related issues.

Craig is an experienced Blogger having written “Corporate Voice” and strategic content for several clients since 2007. He has also written many white papers and strategic plans for Social Media, Sales and Marketing strategy (before and now with Social Media coverage) and has developed client engagement blueprints such as Social Change Impetus for different market applications. He has been Blogging on “Social Media Wave” since it’s inception.

In addition to writing about the above mentioned topics (see Speaking section), you’re encouraged to browse through this blog and e-mail your topic(s) of interest that you’d like us to write about. In your request, please mention the expected article length, deadline and budget.

Once you’ve contacted us, we’ll get back in touch with you within 48 hours with details on possibilities of moving further with the engagement.