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It is always good to learn from the best – and when you think of the most memorable brands in the world, Starbucks ranks right at the top. Like Ritz-Carlton, Starbucks can offer key lessons in branding to airlines, many of which often don’t cost a lot to implement and can create great leverage for the brand.

What does the brand stand for?

In his book, A New Brand World, Scott Bedbury – the former Chief Marketing Officer of Starbucks – details how he personally led the creation of the formidable Starbucks brand. This is how he explains the Starbucks core identity.

“The Starbucks brand’s core identity is less about engineering a great cup of coffee than about providing a great coffee experience….the Starbucks brand is about what Abraham Maslow might have called the coffee “gestalt” – the atmospherics.”

Similarly, airlines need to understand that they’re not in the business of just transporting people point A to point B. Even freight companies like Fedex and UPS talk about principles like on-time delivery, rather than transportation. The first thing airlines need to realize is they will only survive in the long term if they deliver a decent pleasant flying experience – after all, passengers can be on-board the plane anywhere from one hour to twenty two hours (I’ve been on one!). As it is, going through security and immigration before getting on the plane is extremely stressful. They need to feel cared for and enjoy the in-flight experience.

Airlines like JetBlue in the US do it well, with their on-board amenities and convey the message across well too, with their “Flying – That’s why we created Jetting” campaign. Just like Starbucks, it talks about delivering an experience, and not so much the basics of transportation. Singapore Airlines talks about bringing back the “romance of flying” – which is indeed becoming a novelty these days. Simply put, these airlines know what their core brand identity is, and work to deliver an experience that is consistent with it.

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