If you’re looking for cutting edge thought leadership on airline marketing and branding, you’ve come to the right person. If you’re looking to work with someone probably as passionate about airlines as Richard Branson, Shashank Nigam is your man. If you haven’t read about Shashank already, you can get acquainted with him here, or just download his detailed bio.

Shashank is available for limited consulting, speaking and writing opportunities. Limited because while he’d love to address all requests, he gives his best to those requests he takes up and doesn’t want his attention to be diluted. Please see below the details for each opportunity to work with Shashank.

Consulting

• Are you an airline executive leading the marketing or branding strategy?
• Are you trying to figure out how to retain customers in these difficult times?
• Do you keep hearing about Web 2.0 and want to learn how to leverage it for your airline’s brand?
• And of course, how to accomplish all these things without emptying your pockets?
• 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 Shashank’s ideas not just progressive but also easily implementable. He will work with you and your team to come up with simple yet effective ways to attract more customers, more often, making them happier each time. All these steps and more enable sustained brand building.

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

If you are interested in engaging Shashank for a consultation, please e-mail him 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

Shashank is available for speaking engagements on airline marketing and branding, ranging from 30-45 mins keynotes to panel discussions, as well as day-long workshops. He boils down most marketing and branding initiatives as ultimately leading to three simple goals (a principle he applies in consulting too):

1. Get a greater number of customers flying your airline (improved load-factors)
2. Get customers flying more often with your airline (improved frequency/loyalty)
3. Get customers to generate more revenue profits for the airline per trip (improved direct and ancillary profits)

Once you send in a speaking request, he will 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 his sessions are peppered with eye-opening case studies from airlines around the world. Here are some of the topics he’s passionate about and will be willing to consider speaking to your audience about:

1. Building airline brands through recessionary times (see article)
2. Enhancing brand equity from airline mergers (see article)
3. Using Web 2.0 and the latest technologies to build your brand (see articles)
4. Increasing employee loyalty and reducing churn during downturns (see article)
5. Improving your frequent flier program to retain and continually impress customers (see article)
6. Lessons for airlines from well respected brands from other industries (see article)
7. Best marketing and branding practices from leading airlines around the world, as applied to your context

To book an engagement, kindly  e-mail Shashank 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.”

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

Once you’ve contacted Shashank, he will get back in touch with you within 48 hours with details on possibilities of moving further with the engagement.