Compared with airlines, airports have come to marketing late. Airlines cut their marketing teeth in the world of consumer marketing when the ‘four Ps’ – product, place, price, promotion – were all there was to marketing and it was obvious who the customer was.
Airport marketing, however, has come a very long way in recent years as airports have embraced their role as commercial enterprises and economic catalysts.
Indeed, most now understand who their customers are and they know how to communicate with them.
And they are increasingly sophisticated users of social media for communicating with passengers and have become experts in the world of business-to-business (B2B) marketing.
But marketing is not an end in itself. It serves a purpose and that is to deliver results such as new routes, better networks, higher passenger volumes and, ultimately, better financial performance.
Marketing audit
In this article we encourage airports to stop and take a fresh look from time to time at their marketing activity in its entirety, assessing what is working and producing results, what has become so familiar it is unquestioned (but may now be ineffective), and what aspects of their marketing need to evolve in order to keep pace with dynamic markets, new customer segments and their own changing priorities.
The ‘marketing audit’ is one way to do this. Although this can be a purely internal process, the real benefits occur when external consultants are brought in, bringing a fresh pair of eyes to the task.
In essence, the marketing audit is an opportunity to review everything that constitutes an airport’s marketing output in the light of stated goals and targets.
One of the main benefits of the externally assisted marketing audit is the ability to see where there is a mismatch between marketing messages and the route development goals of the airport.
The nature of the route development role means that route development specialists often work as a distinct team, separate from the core marketing team, and yet they should be working closely together, for the whole route development process is essentially a matter of B2B marketing.
And, just as with consumer marketing, poorly considered marketing messages can hinder reaching the goal rather than help.
We all recall the urban legends associated with well-known brands’ marketing mishaps: Coca-Cola’s first steps into the Chinese market with a product whose name could mean “bite the wax tadpole” or “female horse stuffed with wax”, depending on the dialect, or Pepsi’s translation of “Come alive with the Pepsi generation” for the Taiwan market which came out as “Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the dead”.
These examples may be extreme, but the lesson is that even large, well-resourced companies can unwittingly give the impression of corporate incompetence or ignorant foreigners.
Airport slogans are one aspect of marketing, aimed at positioning an airport in the marketplace for consumers, stakeholders, airline customers and prospective airlines. By their nature they need to fulfil a generic role.
But most airport marketing is about targeting specific markets, specific customers and specific stakeholders. As route development has become a process of detailed campaigns to win air service by individual airlines, so the marketing needs to be tailored and customer-focused.
Workshop
The marketing audit collects evidence of all the marketing activity being undertaken by an airport, and evaluates it in the light of stated airport goals, including route development targets. It then aims to identify and make recommendations as to changes of direction where they may be required.
A vital element of the audit process is a workshop, which brings together all those involved in marketing and route development. At the workshop, the marketing audit team present the full scope and scale of marketing activity taking place, which provides a unique opportunity to see where there are mismatches between the stated goals and the marketing messages used by the airport.
Rarely are such contradictions deliberate or the result of wilfulness or miscommunication. Rather, they are the consequence of departments doing their job without sufficient regard to the wider picture.
To give one example, the route development consulting firm, ASM (which carries out marketing audits for airports), undertook a marketing audit for Hamburg Airport.
The gateway had established an advertising campaign based on personalities that were well understood in the European market but, under the microscope of a marketing audit, were shown to be less suited to some of the new route development targets being pursued in Asia, where the airlines are known to take a more conservative approach to route development.
While the ads had worked well in Europe, with Hamburg Airport winning a ‘Highly Commended’ award for its marketing campaigns at Routes Europe, the pursuit of airlines with different cultural backgrounds, in particular in Asia, meant these messages would lose their value.
This is exactly the type of thing that a marketing audit, with the fresh pair of eyes that it brings, can spot. And the fact is not lost on Hamburg Airport’s general manager aviation marketing, Jörgen Kearsley, who admits that ASM’s marketing audit was “extremely valuable to us”.
“Having the chance to question our strategy was of great assistance and has helped establish our way forward for years to come,” enthuses Kearsley.
A comprehensive marketing audit will start by understanding the goals of an airport. For example, what improvements are sought by management, and what are the airline and route targets?
It will also evaluate the competition, gathering evidence of its marketing messages; and it will gather material evidence of what the airport itself actually communicates about itself.
This is all analysed and weighed against the actual successes, which can be associated with the various streams of marketing activity.
At the workshop, evidence is presented and recommendations made by the audit team. Then it is up to the whole team to apply the lessons to the future campaign planning.
The workshop aims to identify appropriate messages for each target market that the airport has and then develop these into propositions – words – that will resonate with the carriers.
At this stage it is important to consider how cultural differences may affect the way these messages translate. For each target airline, the team needs to be able to answer the ‘why?’ question – why would airline XYZ fly here?
And the answer to this question must be contained within the proposed marketing messages.
The benefits of this process go beyond the subsequent choice of marketing, as it helps departments work together, and fosters greater awareness of airport priorities across the business.
Successful marketing audits should also result in better working relationships with airlines and other stakeholders too.
The article started with a reference to airlines being first out of the marketing blocks, when compared with airports. This might give the impression that airlines always do it better, but this isn’t necessarily so, as American Airlines recently proved with a faux pas in a social media based marketing campaign.
Trying to ride the wave of enthusiasm for the Dallas Mavericks after they won the NBA Championships, the airline used Facebook to announce it was giving a star player 200,000 AAdvantage miles and an all-expenses paid vacation.
However, the airline badly misjudged the response of economically hard-pressed fans to this generous offer to a millionaire athlete, and the post was pulled within an hour.
For that hour the airline had taken its eye off the customer. Airports can learn these lessons and do marketing better.
