A picture speaks a thousand words, so I’ll share with you the screen shot of an email by Virgin America that was posted by a blogger last week. Three words to describe this marketing effort – appropriate, effective and spreadable.

Don’t you think?

I have another confession to make. I haven’t been on Virgin America, and I really want to try it! (the first confession was a couple of weeks back that I haven’t been on Southwest, and that I wanted to meet the rapping flight attendant). Why the sudden burst of emotions? Well, because I just watched an interview of Richard Branson in one of those purple-blue cabins and I was mesmerized, yet again.
Why is it all the rave? Thanks to The Nerdist.
Because this time, Richard was interviewed by Chris Hardwick, “The Nerdist“, and Chris has been generating lots of comments on the interview, been Tweeting about it and making a lot more fans for the airline than probably a Virgin America advertisement in the morning daily would have. Why am I so sure? May be because on Twitter, Chris has 20 times the “followers” that Virgin America has! And I bet his website gets more hits than the Virgin America website too.

The point I’m trying to make? Airlines are in the service business, and not in the transport business. And because of that, airlines cannot shy away from social media anymore. Be it working with …

In my conversation with airline executives, I often emphasize my belief that an airline’s brand is what it does, not what it says it does.  And Virgin America in the US is proving to be very good at delivering their brand promises – that of presenting the customer a new way to fly.

I’ve written in the past that Virgin America  is good at living up to a highly-differentiated brand positioning. Be it Sir Richard Branson or the zingy flight attendants. Be it the smaller-than-usual boarding passes or the in-flight safety video. All elements enforce a strong Virginisque brand personality, and it is this which continues to linger in the customers’ minds long after they leave the plane.

Here’s a true account of a passenger who’s comparing her flights from Boston on Virgin America and Delta, and you can clearly tell why Virgin America is a clear-cut winner – because of their impeccable brand delivery.

Virgin America Vs. Delta Airlines…

Image by satosphere via Flickr

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In the last part of his three-part interview, Joe Crump,  the VP of Strategic Planning at Razorfish, reveals that instead of fearing the recession, airlines around the world can use it as a catalyst to build strong brands. Joe believes that “incredibly narrow constraints usually present the biggest opportunity for innovation”. I couldn’t agree with him more.

Companies like Apple, GE and Toyota have emerged stronger by just doing that in the past. In fact, the airline industry is full of success stories from the recession as well, like AirAsia and JetBlue. Right now, Virgin America in the US is doing a fabulous job at building a strong brand by offering great value in the recession.
Digital investments = greater ROI
Joe makes a startling revelation in his interview below. He shares that contrary to popular belief, investments in product upgrades on-board an aircraft, as well as other “hard” invesments like frequent flier lounges seldom match the …

Continuing the series of interviews with Joe Crump, the Vp of Strategic Planning at Razorfish, I’m pleased to share with you the second of his three part interview. Joe continues to amaze with his in-depth knowledge of not just the branding world, but also of the airline industry, since he’s a frequent flier himself.
Target the niche and appeal to the masses
When asked whether airlines should carve out a niche or target everyone, Joe responded with an intriguing answer – do both at the same time. He shares the example of Virgin America, which stongly markets itself to “the connected class”  but the budget conscious traveler often boards the airline too, since they offer such a great value product and service.
Do digital branding efforts need new measurement rules?
At the recent Interact 2008 conference in Washington DC, Joe had mentioned that the “Interbrand brand rankings are dead”. I dug in on his comment to find out what he really meant. Joe explained that the old rules of brand engagement have changed, since a brand’s digital presence now needs to be taken into account too. Hence the methods to measure them also need to be adapted to the current …

Image via Wikipedia

I’ve had the opportunity in the past few months of interviewing a number of distinguished thought leaders in the aviation and branding industry over the past few months on SimpliFlying. But a recent encounter in New York has left a deep impression on me, since this brand leader’s ideas truly resonated with what I’ve been writing about technology branding for airlines lately.

I’m referring to my conversation with Joe Crump, the VP of Strategy & Planning at Razorfish – the leading digital branding agency. At one point in the interview, he predicts that “any airline that doesn’t go digital pretty damn quick is going to find itself obsolete”. And he has 25 years of experience in branding and technology to back up his foresight.
Airline branding – “genuinely complicated”
In his interview, Joe shared that the fundamental problem of the airline industry is that “of over-promising and then inconsistently delivering”. And this is mainly because of the number of externalities airlines need to deal with – from fluctuating …

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Virgin America is the latest airline to foray into Web 2.0. It follows hot on the heels of similar initiatives by AirFrance-KLM, Lufthansa and sister-airline Virgin Atlantic. The big question is whether the effort is worth it, or is it yet another futile attempt? Will it help the brand? What else can be done to improve the website’s effectiveness?
What’s good about the “community” website?
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Well… firstly, I think it’s a move in the right direction, and Virgin America has got a number of things right in their online community. Let me quickly review what’s good about the site, which will help the brand:
Reviews and stories: Site visitors are able to submit their stories of flying with Virgin America. There is also a section called “The Scoop”, which not only displays these stories, but also offers integration with leading online tools like Facebook and  Twitter. This is certainly good to get the customer warmed up to the Virgin America brand.

Engaging: The site has interactive features like the “toy box” where they can play games like “Voyage Simulator”. There is also a contest they can take …

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Innovative products and services – the key ingredient for strong brands – ooze out all the chart-toppers in Conde Nast Traveler 2008 airline rankings released recently. Last week, in an interview with this blog, Gary Leopold, the CEO of ISM Boston shared that “the product is the brand”. This certainly holds true for for the top few airlines in each category. Below, we’ve pointed out what the top two airlines in each category do right, that makes them so good.
Surprise! in the air
Before we get into what the to airlines do right, how about pointing out some surprises about this latest ranking? Interestingly, Singapore Airlines operates only one trans-Atlantic flight (Frankfurt – JFK), and yet they are in the top two airlines on this route. Even though they don’t use their latest and best planes on this route, the great brand leverage they’ve built for themselves continues to give them lots of mileage on this route.
Where are the US airlines? Bad product + Bad service = bad brand!
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The US airlines are …

Recently, there was a lot of buzz about Virgin America’s “cute and tiny” boarding passes. The new design made waves not because it was much better, but because it was different. The unique Virgin America experience started the moment a passenger printed out the boarding pass. And guess what, a boarding pass or a ticket is often the only physical item that connects the airline passenger to the brand, even after the event. So shouldn’t airlines be thinking a little more creatively about how to use the air ticket as a tool of prolonged brand engagement with the passenger?

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In a recent blog post, Cam Beck at MarkeringProfs.com mentioned that he had attended a workshop by Stephen Anderson and Travis Isaacs on effectively organizing information. The result of that class was an airline ticket redesign Cam and friends did, as shown below. Cam went on to suggest in his article that once unnecessary information has been removed, there enough space for a special offer for the passenger too! …

Image via Wikipedia
In service businesses like airlines, first impressions count. On my hour-long American Airlines flight last evening from Toronto to Boston, I was welcomed on-board by a cheerful flight attendant, Heather. She was genuinely pleasant (and not over-doing it) and extremely courteous, even though she was the only flight attendant on board the small Embraer jet. She played along when people were not paying close attention to the safety demonstration, and cracked jokes while serving beverages. A very pleasant experience – but that’s just one tenth of the job done for the airline when it comes to creating first impressions.

Creating lasting first impressions – a hundred million times
Air Canada’s Robert Milton mentions in his book that on average each passenger comes in contact with the airline ten times, every time he flies. This may be through the call center, website, at the check-in counter and of course, on-board the plane. So if an airline flies 10 million passengers per year, there would be a total of 100 million interactions on average! So how can airlines create a lasting first impression, every customer interaction? Here are three ways.

Exceed expectations. Before a customer interacts with an airline, he has certain expectations formed through advertisements, word-of-mouth or previous experiences. Airlines should aim to exceed them. Reduce the waiting time at the call center. Have pleasant check-in counter staff. Cater to the fliers’ needs on-board. This is not to say that each and every airline must spend millions in sprucing up service levels, but rather exceed the expectations they have set themselves. For example, budget airlines like AirAsia promise on-time performance and not in-flight luxuries. They then ensure these metrics are adhered to. Airlines like Thai Airways and Qatar Airways promise a pampered service for their business class passengers, and then deliver it. Prioritize, then execute and keep the word.