Introduction and Background
The history of Emirates Airlines is an example of exceptional success and outstanding approach to business creation, development, and maintenance. For more than thirty years, the company has developed and implemented several advertising campaigns, promoting the Emirates brand in various directions, and all of them have been recognized as successful. However, times change and Emirates Airlines requires a new approach to advertising, promoting its brand, and attracting new clients who have substantially ‘evolved’ since the 1980s.
Summary
Emirates Airlines is considered one of the largest and most successful airlines in the world as of today. The company was created in 1985, having only 10 million U.S. dollars of capital and a team consisting of a dozen people. It was founded in March, and in October, the first flight was performed to Karachi. It should be noted that those $US10 million was the only support the company received from the government of Dubai (Balakrishnan, Michael & Kennedy 2013). The Emirates has operated independently since that time, having protection from the government in terms of competition neither at the beginning of the operations nor today.
The company had started business operations with two leased aircraft: Boeing 737 and Airbus 300. After the inaugural flight, only two new destinations were opened: New Delhi and Bombay. The modern fleet of Emirates Airlines includes 171 aircraft with 232 still to come. In 2012, airlines flew to more than 120 destinations located in almost 30 countries worldwide (Balakrishnan, Michael & Kennedy 2013). The Emirates employs about 45,000 personnel, including 14,000 employees as cabin crew.
Such a breathtaking success is the result of the work of three outstanding managers and leaders heading the company: His Highness Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Chairman and CEO of Emirates Airline, and the whole Emirates Group, Sir Maurice Flanagan, Executive Vice Chairman, and Tim Clark, President of Emirates Airlines (Balakrishnan, Michael & Kennedy 2013). These top executives have implemented numerous policies and development programs, leading the company to the current market position, but the development of the brand’s image has contributed to the overall success of the Emirates the most.
The brand and its reputation became the key to the success of the Emirates. The company has developed several very successful campaigns starting from 1986 and until the latest one launched in 2012. The first campaign, called “Your Oasis in the Sky” was launched in 1986 to present the company in the targeted markets such as Egypt, India, and the market of Pakistan (Balakrishnan, Michael & Kennedy 2013).
The second campaign launched in 1987 and called “Even Time Flies on Emirates,” was coincided with the opening of the United Kingdom market. This campaign was focused on the quality of the service provided by the company and the speed of transportation assured by its fleet. As the loyalty of the current customers has strengthened, the Emirates executives realized that there was a need for new customers to be attracted. In 1992, the third campaign, “Fly Us Once, Fly Us Always” was launched (Balakrishnan, Michael & Kennedy 2013). The company was focused on the inflight advantages (TVs, luxury food, and other exclusive benefits) of services provided by the Emirates.
The need for constant changes was apparent for the management team of Emirates Airlines. Thus, in 1994, the company launched the campaign called “Finest in the Sky,” inaugurated the accumulated achievements of the Emirates in the sphere of customer service, best-offered services on the market, and similar successes (Balakrishnan, Michael & Kennedy 2013). The campaign was focused on the award-winning reputation of the company and the excellence of the services available to the clients of Emirates Airlines. The vision of the company’s managers has evolved according to the evolution of the customers’ needs.
In 1999, the executive team decided to address the emotions of the customers and based the new campaign “Be Good to Yourself Fly Emirates” on the emotional appeal (Balakrishnan, Michael & Kennedy 2013). They have emphasized the importance of details in everyday life and managed to show the Emirates customers how the company values their time and comfort. The campaign appeared to be very customer-centric and won several awards.
Being a significant air transportation market player, Emirates Airlines launched the new campaign in 2002, called “Keep Discovering” (Balakrishnan, Michael & Kennedy 2013). Its emphasis was on the opportunity to try something new provided by the company. The company wanted to show how strong it was at that time and how the multicultural and multinational corporate environment helped the Emirates to provide its customers with the best services possible.
Finally, in 2012, Emirates Airlines launched the new campaign, called “Hello Tomorrow” (Balakrishnan, Michael & Kennedy 2013). The uniqueness of the campaign was in the idea of shifting the position of the Emirates from the usual air transportation company to more than that, to a lifestyle brand. The creators and developers approached this task in a rather unusual and, at the same time, simple manner. The campaign was not positioned as a traditional campaign, used by the Emirates in the past. It has become a brand platform that should facilitate communications, operations, and other processes conducted under the brand of Emirates Airlines.
Evaluation
The overall success of the Emirates is easy to explain if to trace the approach to the building of its relationships with its customers. The company is extremely customer-centric, and it values its customers as the most significant asset. All campaigns under the Emirates brand were built using different concepts and methods, but none of them used the image of a plane or cabin, or something similar.
It means that the stake on the emotional appeal and trust to the company a customer should obtain before and during ones’ first flights was correct and sagacious. Another strategically smart and time-relevant approach to advertising the Emirates brand was its luxury and exquisite quality (Graham, Papatheodorou & Forsyth 2010; Balakrishnan, Michael & Kennedy 2013). People, who decided whether they should use the services of Emirates Airlines or not, saw in the advertising campaigns that the company offered great services and customers’ approach, so using this company’s services should have been worth of money spent. The general concept of the advertising campaign was to make a customer think about comfort, new experiences, care of the personnel, and other things during the flight rather than the cost of it. Such an approach appeared to be extremely successful.
The continuous development of new information technologies and the growing popularity of the internet has brought the new generation of customers with values different from the values of the people born in the 1960-70s (Hetter 2012; Johanson 2014). This new generation does not value luxury and style so extensively promoted by the company in the past as the major advantages of an airline. These people value time, new experiences, and new information. In other words, the generation of ‘globalistas’ (the customers of the new breed, according to the Emirates) needs an airplane to get from this point to that, and that it is. Emirates Airlines, the company that has built its image on the quality of services, has faced a serious challenge this time.
Current Issues
The major question arises if to think about the issue that Emirates has. The question is about the efficient methods of advertising services to people who perceive airplane travels as the necessity to transport oneself from point A to point B but not as the event with luxury food, beverages, and entertainments. It applies to the intercontinental flights as well. The problem of Emirates Airlines in the successful implementation of “Hello Tomorrow” platform is that most people today do not care about how many languages can be used by the Emirates personnel to smile to their customers (one of the slogans, used within the concept of the platform).
Old-school customers, real admirers of the Emirates’ approach to building relationships with customers on services’ quality, are still loyal and regular guests on the Emirates’ planes (Coats 2012). They promote the services of the Emirates better than any advertising campaign can. However, the amount of such customers steadily declines year after year (The World Bank 2016). ‘Globalistas’ require different, alternative approaches to advertising airlines’ services.
Recommendation
Considering the focus of the Emirates executives on maintaining the reputation of the brand and the increase of the market share in all markets, I choose the low-cost flight’s creation and promotion alternative as from an organizational point of view it will solve the problem of attracting new customers from the social group known as ‘globalistas’ and have this impact on Emirates: increase sales and market share, improve the corporate image, and increase customer satisfaction substantially. Emirates Airlines should develop a targeted sub-campaign aimed at attracting new customers from the generation of ‘globalistas’.
It can be done by developing low-cost programs that would be promoted as the alternative to luxury and expensive services of the Emirates. The specialized campaign should show that young people (usual students from all over the world) could use Emirates’ services as easy as people who can afford first-class travel. The only difference would be the comfort of the flight. On the other hand, the emphasis of the campaign should also be made to the highest quality of the overall set of services such as the attitude of the personnel and other factors, making the service of high quality. The campaign should take place in the cities that generate the traffic of young people and the customers who prefer cheaper flights.
These activities should broaden the audience and add another side to the brand’s value – democratic, fun, easy-going, for example. The loyal, respectable customers of Emirates Airlines should still be loyal to the company that cares about all potential customers equally, paying special attention to any possible needs. It is good for the image and the revenue of the company.
Conclusion
Summing, the paper explored the history and the current situation of Emirates Airlines’ brand development. It evaluated the conducted campaigns and outlined the issues Emirates currently has. The appropriate recommendation was provided and explained thoroughly.
Reference List
Balakrishnan, MS, Michael, I & Kennedy, M 2013, ‘Emirates Airlines – the evolution of a brand platform’, AIB-MENA, pp. 1-30. Web.
Coats, K 2012, ‘Fly emirates: how an airline gets it right in all but one thing’, TomorrowTodayGlobal. Web.
Graham, A, Papatheodorou, A & Forsyth, P 2010, Aviation and tourism: implications for leisure travel, Ashgate Publishing Limited, Burlington. Web.
Hetter, K 2012, ‘The golden days of air travel: How glorious were they?‘ CNN. Web.
Johanson, M 2014, ‘How the airline industry has evolved in 100 years of commercial air travel’, International Business Times. Web.
The World Bank 2016, Air transport, passengers carried. Web.