British Airways - an Innovation Lab in the Sky - Case Study Example

British Airways: An innovation lab in the sky (ungrounded campaign) Background British Airways is among the leading airline companies in the world. The company is United Kingdom’s flag carrier airline and boasts of the largest fleet sizes, international destinations and international flights in the country. The company enjoys global acceptance owing to its effective marketing endeavors (Cutlip, 1962). The company has numerous international destinations with the United States being one of its largest markets. The company has intimate ties with the United States. It, for example, is one of the long-term customers of Boeing, an American plane manufacturer. In order to achieve its desired global profitability, the company carries out extensive market research and analyzes coupled with systematic advertising. Public relations are key to the company’s marketing strategies. It uses a number of strategies for building a desirable reputation thereby enjoying a degree of profitability both in the United States and globally. Business goal British Airways is a public company with its main goal being to make substantial profits on the shareholder investment. The company operates in the transport and tourism industry. It provides transport services among other services in the hospitality industry. Additionally, it uses a number of marketing strategies in order to sustain its desired profitability thereby enhancing investor confidence (Bowen, Rawlins & Martin, 2010). In doing this, the company strives to: Achieve profitability for its investor Provide a competitive yet friendly working environment for its employees Guarantee customer satisfaction. Statement of the problem The United States is one of British Airways’ largest markets. The company serves various cities in the country from New York in the East Coast to Los Angeles in the West Coast. The country’s large population coupled with a strong economy is some of the basic factors that continue to entice such global companies like British Airways. The company plies various routes both within the United States and to numerous other countries globally. As such, the company often carries out expensive marketing in the country. These include periodic market researches, market analysis, advertising and public relations among others. The company does all these with the view to safeguarding both its profitability and longevity in the market (Cranes Lions international festival of creativity, 2014) Over the years, the American market attracted a number of competitors who succeeded in winning a substantial share of British Airway’s market. The company had developed a formidable legacy of innovative breakthroughs. However, the company lost the legacy especially in its West Coast regions because of the intense competition coupled with its lackluster marketing endeavors. As such, the company systematically lost a lucrative market to its competitors. The ungrounded campaign is, therefore, a large-scale public relation exercise the company seeks to use in improving the reputation of the company not only in the region but also globally. The campaign is to elevate the company’s reputation by presenting it as a source of influence on thought leadership, innovation and part of the Silicon Valley. Research The British Airways’ ungrounded campaign is an extensive project that requires effective understanding of the context in order to improve its success. The research will have qualitative aspects conducted through systematic interviews with focus groups. The researchers must identify the respondents from the society. The subjects are business people among other travelers who use airplanes as their mode of transportation. The researchers interview fifty respondents obtained from various airports in Loss Angeles among other cities in West Coast (Cranes Lions international festival of creativity, 2014). The research will also comprise of online surveying. This requires the interactions of various people on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. In doing this, the researchers must target business people and other groups who travel a lot. The research will further consist of an extensive analysis of books among other forms of existing literature in order to obtain appropriate information on carrying out such extensive public relations exercises. Situation analysis Key among the main strengths of British Airways is its accessibility to large financial resources. This makes it possible for the marketing team to execute any operation that promises increased profitability. Additionally, the company is an established brand with a desirable reputation. This makes it easier to market its other products (Torossian, 2011). Despite such, the company operates globally a feature that expands its target market thereby complicating any market strategy. While the fact that the company operates globally may require financial resources and increase competition, the market presents a number of opportunities for expansion and growth. The company’s main threat is the rising competition. As British Airways employs new strategies, so do its numerous competitors. Given the above factors, the public relations campaign must have a global approach and seek to improve the company’s image globally. The campaign will have all the required financial resources capable of facilitating a viable research and media messages to help restore the company’s legacy. Communication’s goals The company seeks to restore the company’s legacy by presenting British Airways as an innovative company, one that enjoys thought leadership and is part of the Silicon Valley. In doing this, the campaign will: • Restore the company’s legacy • Build desirable reputation • Increase public’s awareness of the existence of the company and its quality services (Broom & Cutlip, 2012) Objectives The campaign that runs for three months seeks to improve the public’s awareness of the existence of the company. In doing this, the campaign strives to reach more than 100 million users on Twitter and have more than 10,000 mentions within the same period. The campaign will help improve the reputation of the company thereby improving the company’s monthly sales by more than 10% within the three months and ensure that the sales improves at a steady rate of 10% monthly (Cranes Lions international festival of creativity, 2014). Key audiences and stakeholders The campaign targets a wide range of audience groups including: Cooperate entities in West Coast, employees of such entities travel for business meetings and holidays. The campaign seeks to influence the into using British Airways on such trips (Bowen, Rawlins & Martin, 2010) Business people who travel throughout the world The middle-class citizens possibly above 25 years of age, such people can afford periodic holidays among other forms of travel. Key message The campaign had strategic messages that sought to improve the reputation of the company. The messages included: British Airways is an innovative company. The campaign sought to show the level of innovation at the company. British Airways has a dynamic and thoughtful leadership. The campaign is one of the most creative in the world. The program attracted numerous participants from various sectors thereby showing the willingness of the company’s management to work with diverse groups from various parts of the world. To portray innovation and technology as key aspects of the company’s culture (Piscione, 2014). Strategies The ungrounded campaign consisted of a number of activities that would help create awareness in both the program and the company with the view to portraying the level of innovation and technology at the company. These included: Tactical: A number of grass root campaigns and promotions to help create awareness in both the program and the company, media relations, such special events as lunches and dinners. Thematic: The campaign sought to show that British Airways connects people, ideas, and communities. Additionally, it showed the company as a leader in innovation, one that brings together a number of bright minds to solve the problems of the society. Tonal: The campaign showed corporation within the company as various players came together (Oliver & Chartered Institute of Public Relations, 2010). It was both aggressive and proactive. It sought to bring back British Airways’ lost glory. Targets: The campaign targeted opinion leaders. The governor of California for example kicked off the series of activities by launching the campaign. Tactics A launch event coupled with an influencer evening A detailed delegate selection process characterized with a voting process as the ungrounded board selected the innovators to join the “flying innovation lab.” A Mashable contest that sought to engage the public, winners won tickets for the flight (Green & Chartered Institute of Public Relations, 2010) A press conference at the launch event, during the press conference, the governor of California kicked off the campaign with the “Virgin Airlines eat your heart out.” Evaluation As explained earlier, the objectives of ungrounded campaign were to increase the company’s popularity thereby increasing its profitability. As such, the campaign use a variety of ways in measuring is success: I. Carrying out a consistent analysis of the company’s sales, this requires the comparison of the company’s sales before, during and after the campaign. The disparity in the volume of the sales will provide a reliable evaluation of the program’s success. II. The campaign sought to increase the publicity of the company. As such, the campaign will monitor and evaluate the number of posts, tweets, online mentions, readership, subscriptions and likes among many other measurable ways. III. The third evaluation strategy will consist of both pre and post campaign researches that will seek to determine the level of popularity of both the brand and the campaign. This will help determine the campaign’s success in increasing the popularity of the campaign and its ability to develop a desirable reputation for the company (Cranes Lions international festival of creativity, 2014). Timeline Tactic Duration Launch event plus influencer evening One day Delegate selection process Two weeks The Mashable contest Three months Press conference On a weekly basis Media participation Three months Budget (Cranes Lions international festival of creativity, 2014) Tactic Cost Launch event plus influencer evening $25,000 Delegate selection process $50,000 Mashable contest $250,000 Press conferences $25,000 Media participation $50,000 Flying innovation lab $100,000 Total $275,000 References Bowen, S. A., Rawlins, B., & Martin, T. R. (2010). An overview of the public relations function. New York: Business Expert Press. Broom, G. M., & Cutlip, S. M. (2012). Cutlip & Centers effective public relations. Upper Saddle River, N.J: Prentice Hall. Cranes Lions international festival of creativity. (2014). Ungrounded: An innovation in the sky. http://www.welovead.com/en/works/details/b5cweutAi Cutlip, S. M. (1962). Effective public relations. Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice-Hall. Green, A., & Chartered Institute of Public Relations. (2010). Creativity in public relations. London: Kogan Page. Henslowe, P., & Institute of Public Relations. (2003). Public relations: A practical guide to the basics. London: Kogan Page. Oliver, S., & Chartered Institute of Public Relations. (2010). Public relations strategy. London: Kogan Page/CIPR. Piscione, D. P. (2014). Secrets of Silicon Valley: What Everyone Else Can Learn from the Innovation Capital of the World. New York: St. Martins Press. Torossian, R. (2011). For Immediate Release: Shape Minds, Build Brands, and Deliver Results with Game-Changing Public Relations. New York: BenBella Books, Inc. Read More