But how times have changed. With the birth of the technological revolution the first signs of the swing back to the consumer as individual, encouraged to express his or her own opinions and stand apart from the norm, are emerging. A new market environment is developing in which every product and brand can be tailored to meet individual needs and desires in retail, brands or the manufacturing sector. The use of smart cards, electronic databases and computerised personality profiles, have all allowed major companies to shift their focus away from the consumer as having no distinguishable features, to the consumer as a discerning and opinionated individual.
On the high street, Levis are offering personalised jeans - individually tailored to fit, and delivered to the home with unique specifications stitched into the waistband for easy reordering. As these new technologies continue to appear, an increasing number of consumers are rejecting any product which fails to recognise this one-to-one product service.
Ironically, it was the airlines that pioneered this change through the introduction of the loyalty card, which offers personal benefits as an incentive for choosing one airline over another. But progress is threatening to overtake the airlines as a whole variety of initiatives emerges in other sectors which will make other airline frequent flyer programmes pale in comparison. Super-markets, such as UK chain Tesco, are using their loyalty clubcards to target and select their customer base with ultimate precision, mailing consumers at home with letters tailored to specific individual interests.
But what has all this got to do with airline branding? The risk is that all these new channels for direct dialogue adopted by such players as supermarkets, car manufacturers, and food manufacturers - where even the cat receives a birthday card from one pet food company - will soon make the luxury airline sector appear uncaring.
The key to future market success lies in making friends with the customer. The airline of the future will have a durable, personable, and virtual relationship with the individual. This airline will be one that recognises the importance of moving from corporate identity - 'mass market badging' with its matching check-in desks and cutlery sets - to the development of a corporate personality. The decision to fly with one airline rather than another will increasingly be based, not so much on the distant promise of air miles redemption, but on the security and knowledge that the particular airline is the preferred choice because the consumer just loves the way it thinks, acts and behaves.
In branding circles, this human dimension is known as the 'brand personality'. It can be personified through human attributes and behavioural characteristics which give the airline its unique touch. For example, the kind of individual that would personify the BMW would differ from the one identifiable with Mercedes. When envisioned as a real person, the brand persona can be clearly defined and one can begin to identify how this person impacts on everything the airline does. Great brands have personality. This pervades everything the brand does, thinks and says. The beauty of personality is its uniqueness - it cannot be copied or cloned. The more clearly and consistently an airline communicates its personality, the more difficult it becomes for rivals to try and encroach on its territory.
A recent review of airline personalities reveals some interesting trends. Most revealing is whether the airline personality is being defined merely as an advertising tool by the advertising agencies, or whether it is a reflection of a change in the corporate culture at the most senior levels of management. The current advertisement from Swissair illustrates its customers as peaches, nestling on a bed of tissue paper. Every customer is cosseted but each is exactly the same. This has the effect of introducing personality without necessarily identifying that each customer is, of course, an individual. In contrast, a true brand personality would treat all as different. Therein lies the opportunity for durability in a relationship which is based upon trust, empathy, and mutual respect rather than the whims of an art director.
The Swissair approach contrasts with the more cultural personality of Air France. Air France has a stated desire to become the 'most Latin of the North European airlines'. This move shows an understanding of the difference between personality and identity and, provided Air France commits to it with sufficient vigour, will touch on every aspect of the airline's communications and products.
One could therefore look forward to a time when Air France's new brand will be personified through the character and behaviour of a national personality such as Gerard Depardieu. Imagine, then, an airline that places well marinated olives at the top of its corporate agenda instead of on the season's list of cost savings. With a Depardieu-type image would come a new style of service - witty, Gallic and self-assured - reflecting a love of art and music from the moment of take-off. Ultimately, this would affect the carrier's physical and graphic environment in a way in which corporate identity management alone could never have achieved.
In the UK, Virgin Atlantic is phenomenally successful at building brand personality by exploiting the genuine human character of its owner, Richard Branson. This was naturally easy in the early days when the focus was on transatlantic leisure travel, but it became a more complex task when the airline moved into business travel. But while Virgin's Upper Class and Economy are two separate product offerings, they both originated from the same imaginative source. More importantly, the airline recognises that a business traveller on Tuesday is an economy traveller on Saturday. This consistency of personality has been central to Virgin Atlantic's success over recent years.
Every traveller on Virgin remembers Wilbur and Orville - the witty cruet set designed to be stolen, taken home and talked about, and which was far more memorable than all those neatly wrapped after dinner mints, hot towels, in-flight magazines, and free glasses of champagne that are the standard fare on every other airline.
At the other end of the spectrum is the airline with the model corporate identity - British Airways. BA lacks the readily convertible asset of a media figurehead but has set about providing its own unique corporate personality, a personality which is both innovative and intuitive to the personal needs of the flying public. As a mark of innovation, the airline has included cabin beds in first class and recently announced revolutionary steps in in-flight retailing with the inclusion of an in-flight virtual shopping service. Recognising the importance of brand personality, the airline has made much of these recent developments.
As evidence of the considerable importance it now places on the whims and desires of the travelling public, BA also has indicated that it won't be long before travellers can order fresh cappuccino and toast on demand. In terms of brand personality, these moves may have a greater impact than any multi-million pound investment in technology or new aircraft.
Another real challenge for the 21st century airline lies in the impact of electronic ticketing. On the one hand, electronic ticketing may deny the airline the valuable one-to-one interface at the check-in desk, but on the other it represents the first step into the kind of executive smartcard relationship that will, quite simply, leave those supermarket operators standing still.
With the freedom that electronic ticketing provides for any potential booking agent to provide a flight booking service, from American Express to Avis, a very real risk exists that the flight will be reduced to a commodity status, and that the individual choice of airlines will be factored out of the buying process. Therefore, only a significant upsurge in brand loyalty will stop the drive towards the commodity status of airline flights over the next 20 years.
Electronic ticketing and the smartcard may well provide the tools for maintaining that much-needed dialogue with the customer on the ground. In-flight, however, it will become increasingly important for the inflight teams to drive home that personal relationship, with the air stewardess remembering (with a little electronic help) that you like your coffee with two sugars.
In conclusion, we can look back over the history of the airline industry and chart three distinct generations of airline brands during which circumstances and market conditions have shifted from the physical issues of airline development to the emotional issues of brand personality. These can be summarised as follows: -
1 The first generation - industry as an emergent mode of travel. During this pioneering phase, airlines emerged as pure flight providers in a marketplace which mixed a sense of danger with excitement. Those first travellers of flight were offered a slightly Agatha Christie-style of service - when caviar was served in your lap rather than on your plate. In those days national pride led to a situation in which the emergent brands were almost indistinguishable from their host nation in both name and colour. Needs were met but loyalty was not particularly strong.
2 Second generation - post-war development.
In the second generation, the interests of big business moved in, reliability improved and global networks and partnerships emerged. Together with a move towards greater standardisation of service and cost base management, this led to a situation in which the differentiation between one airline and another was as small as it could possibly be. At the end of this second generation, global airlines were behaving in the same manner as global brands such as Coca Cola, Microsoft and Sony.
3 The third generation - a matured market. In a market in which price competition and oversupply have continued to erode the loyalty built up over many years, the action has moved from the development department to the marketing department. The need to secure individual and unique customer relationships has become the fundamental creed of business executives.
This will become increasingly critical as the risk of a non-airline brand with a loyal customer base moving into the airline sector, becomes a reality. Consider the marketing clout of Walt Disney corporation if it were to start an airline. Imagine Disney World Airways' products and what they would provide. A dream today, but a very real possibility tomorrow.
So what is the answer to building a truly successful brand personality? As clearly demonstrated, it requires the skill and knack of being able to inject emotion and soul into even the stiffest of corporate psyches, to create a brand which relates to people as people and not as machines.
Experience of brands in the manufacturing, airline and retail sectors has shown that, not only is the communication of brand personality an essential tool in today's marketplace, it is also emerging as perhaps the most important dimension in a maturing airline market.
Vive la difference!
David Fraser is a director at Fitch, an international consultancy in design and brand developments.
Source: Airline Business
