Emirates Airlines' Marketing Communications - Case Study Example

Emirates Airlines’ Marketing Communications Introduction According to the American Association of Advertising Agencies (1993, cited by Yeshin [2003, p. 398]), integrated marketing communications (IMC) is an idea of marketing communications organization that recognizes the enhanced appeal of a detailed plan that assesses the strategic functions of a mix of communications disciplines and puts them together to offer precision, uniformity and utmost communications effect through flawless integration of distinct messages. In other words, IMC is a communications activity that involves the planning, establishment, integration and execution of various sales promotions, advertisements, events, publicity releases, and so forth, which are disseminated over a given period of time to a brand’s targeted consumers (Shimp 2010, p. 10). The objective of IMC is to affect or directly change the behavior of the targeted audience. This paper analyses the IMC strategies that Emirates Airlines has used to reach its target customers in the air travel industry. Emirates Airlines IMC It is clear that IMC involves the use of different promotional tools in a cohesive way to generate synergy (Egan 2007, p. 388). That is, IMC is concerned with getting all of the various communications messages used by a company to work together in order to reinforce the message that the organization wants to put across. In April 2012, Emirates Airlines unveiled a novel brand platform and strategy dubbed “Hello Tomorrow”, which positions the international carrier as the facilitator of international connectivity as well as extraordinary experiences. In this IMC campaign, Emirates depicts itself as a new brand that is evolving from an ordinary travel brand to an international lifestyle trade name (Emirates 2012). The “Hello Tomorrow” marketing campaign targets a new audience that includes people who have some travel experience or those who have ambitions to get the traveling experience, as well as those who embrace the chance to test the untried experiences (O'Reilly 2012). The campaign also aims to capture the passion for connecting people’s dreams, hopes, as well as aspirations. According to Indiantelevision.com (2012), “Hello Tomorrow” aims to motivate people to meet the limitless potential of “tomorrow” now. Splitting the phrase “Hello Tomorrow” into two words, Hello and Tomorrow, it can be noted that “Hello” is a greeting or an invite to person, an experience or a place; whereas “Tomorrow” indicates a time, state of mind, a place or the unlimited possibility of the future. Thus, by combining the two words, Emirates encourages potential customers to attempt doing the untried, develop new thoughts, and create new dreams. To reinforce its message to the public, Emirates engaged a number of advertising channels including television, newspapers, advertising on the Internet through the organization’s website (http://www.emirates.com) and other online channels such as YouTube. Basically, all these channels of advertising aimed to communicate the same message: “Hello Tomorrow”. The TV advert can be watched from YouTube at while some of the adverts featured in various newspapers worldwide and on the company website are shown in the captions below. They include “Tomorrow never stops exploring”, “Tomorrow brings us all closer”, “Tomorrow wants to add your colors in the mix”, “Tomorrow rewards the curious”, and “Tomorrow thinks the borders are so yesterday”. Source: Emirates (2012) Along with these adverts, Emirates notes that the world belongs to those who are incessantly inquisitive – that is to every person who explores the world with their eyes open, and who never ceases exploring, finding out, and evolving. And with respect to new people, the campaign states that “tomorrow” brings people closer to other people, new concepts, and new mindsets. Thus, Emirates enables people to reach all the places they have never been to. Emirates Airlines also seems to refer to its ability to serve the world by noting that to create the new world, 7 billion heads (the world population) are better than one. According to Emirates, people who travel beyond the borders of convention are likely to experience broader perspectives, brighter ideas and even deeper loves. Finally, Emirates states that “tomorrow” thinks borders are so yesterday because inspiration and great ideas can travel anywhere and everywhere. The TV and YouTube adverts emphasize the same messages on the highlighted captions although as usual TV adverts encompass moving pictures as well as sound. According to the company website, the Hello Tomorrow campaign was also featured on attractive billboards in New York and at the central train station in Milan. In addition, the Emirates website was refreshed to reflect the “Hello Tomorrow” messaging to any visitor. Emirates has also gone further to target the younger population by having its “Hello Tomorrow” tag on its official Facebook page (Emirates 2012). Through sites such as Facebook, Emirates is able to have an interactive platform where it can continually update its customers regarding the services it has on offer while also enabling customers to air their compliments, grievances or queries in regard to the services offered by the company. The idea behind using different communication channels to state virtually the same message is to unite the different marketing programs at targeting a particular audience. According to Solomon, Cornell and Nizan (n.d. p. 181), there is a good reason to integrate in that by coordinating the messages across all communication tools, a company is able to speak to its customers and potential customers in one, unified voice. Thus the combined voice creates a more powerful and memorable message than disjointed efforts. Based on this analysis, anyone who sees the words “Hello Tomorrow”, be it in a TV advert, a newspaper ad or on the company website, is reminded of the need to fly with “fly Emirates”. The key aspect is that when different forms of advertising media are used, it is possible to contact different customers in one way or another with the same message (Boone & Kurtz 2009, p. 461). The messages on the five captions highlighted in this paper and the different methods used to communicate them depict the common principles that typify IMC. These are: being customer oriented – what can be termed as an out-side in strategy; relaying consistent information using all forms of appropriate media; establishing associations with stakeholders; and attaining sustained change of behavior among the target groups (Hawkins, Bulmer & Eagle 2011, pp. 229). Prior to coming up with the “Hello Tomorrow” marketing campaign, Emirates was also involved in sponsorships as part of its IMC strategy. Sponsorship is defined as an investment in cash or kind in an activity, in exchange for access to the utilizable commercial prospect linked with this activity (Kitchen & De Pelsmacker 2004, p. 94). According to Fill and Hughes (2012), the airline entered into a number of high profile sports sponsorship in an attempt to build the brand internationally. These include a deal with Formula One McLaren racing team worth about $25 million for the year 2006. McLaren believed that there were mutual benefits resulting from this relationship with Emirates targeting the millions of people following Grand Prix racing the world over. Emirates has also been involved in a very large sponsorship program as an official partner of FIFA, the world football governing organization in a deal worth $195 million over a period of seven years (Fill & Hughes 2012). According to Fill and Hughes (2012), this level of partnership offers Emirates significantly enhanced media coverage with rights to all FIFA activities which include the already held 2006 and 2010 and the forthcoming 2014 World Cup tournaments, with exclusive rights to broadcast World Cup matches to passengers. This means that Emirates can then use this opportunity to reinforce its “Hello Tomorrow” message in the days approaching and during the 2014 World Cup. Emirates is also associated with Arsenal football club in England, a deal that even saw the club shift to a new football stadium called Emirates. According to Fill and Hughes (2012), the deal between Emirates and Arsenal is worth £100 million and includes the club’s new football stadium as well as the team t-shirts (see the picture below). The marketing communication’s focus is on online campaigns through a fans website and stadium advertising. Fill and Hughes (2012), further note that Emirates has also become the first ever sponsor of rugby union referees. In addition to kit branding, the deal will give Emirates naming rights to the International Rugby Board’s (IRBs’) Annual Awards night and the IRB International Yearbook. The objectives of sponsorship are to establish brand awareness for existing and new products in the short- and long-term and to reinforce brand familiarity and use (Kitchen & De Pelsmacker 2004, p. 94). Sponsorship also offers a more cost-effective means of reaching the target audience (Fill & Hughes 2012). The Emirates Stadium Source: Arsenal.com (2013) Conclusion Emirates Airlines has been involved in several IMC campaigns to strengthen its brand image and presence. Key among these is the “Hello Tomorrow” campaign which has seen the company use different forms of advertising media to reach customers while emphasizing a unified message about the brand. Previously, the company was engaged in various sponsorships in sports such as racing, rugby and football. Some of these sponsorships are still ongoing and serve to immensely support the current IMC campaign which strives to build and increase brand awareness for the airline. References Arsenal.com 2013, “Get to... Emirates Stadium”, viewed 18 March 2013, Boone, L E & Kurtz, D L 2009, Contemporary business 2010 update, 13th edn, John Wiley & Sons, New York. Egan, J 2007, Marketing communications, Cengage Learning EMEA, New York. Emirates 2012, ‘Emirates launches new global brand platform – “Hello Tomorrow”’, viewed 17 March 2013, Fill, C & Hughes, G 2012, CIM coursebook marketing communications 07/08, 3rd edn, Routledge, London. Hawkins, J, Bulmer, S & Eagle, L 2011, ‘Evidence of IMC in social marketing’, Journal of Social Marketing, Vol. 1, No. 3, pp. 228-239. Indiantelevision.com 2012, ‘Emirates 'Hello tomorrow' as it shifts from travel to lifestyle brand’, viewed 18 March 2013, Kitchen, P J & De Pelsmacker, P 2004, Integrated marketing communications: A primer, Routledge, London. O'Reilly, L 2012, ‘Emirates introduces new brand positioning’, Marketing Week, 27 Mar 2012, viewed 18 March 2013, Shimp, T A 2010, Advertising, promotion, and other aspects of integrated marketing communications, 8th edn, Cengage Learning, New York. Solomon, M R, Cornell, L D & Nizan, n.d. A launch! Advertising and promotion in real time, Flat World Knowledge, New York. Yeshin, T 2003, ‘The integration of marketing communications’, in Baker, M J, The marketing book, 5th edn, Butterworth Heinemann, Oxford, chapter 16, pp. 395-417. Read More