Derrick has spent the past 20+ years helping organizations release the full potential of their brands. His experience is as deep as it is diverse encompassing the disciplines of advertising, branding, sales promotion and public relations. Most notably he has worked with the White House Press Corps, Johnson budget rent a car old town kissimmee & Johnson and Unilever.
Recognized travel cuts toronto as one of the world's leading travel cuts toronto experts on brand management and marketing, travel cuts toronto Brad wrote the best selling travel cuts toronto book Brand Aid, the first comprehensive practical, 'how-to' guide on building winning travel cuts toronto brands. A much sought after brand consultant and speaker, he writes extensively budget rent a car old town kissimmee for the business press and academic journals and is regularly quoted in trade publications.
In a recent budget rent a car old town kissimmee post on airline travel cuts toronto brand differentiation I shared insight into the creation of Song Airlines, budget rent a car old town kissimmee Delta's high touch-low cost airline subsidiary, travel cuts toronto a first of its kind airline budget rent a car old town kissimmee brand developed to attract primarily women to its leisure destinations. While President and chief brand advocate, we conceptualized Song in late 2002, it began flying April 15, 2003. Song was merged back into Delta on May 31, 2006, during Delta's travel cuts toronto bankruptcy process. Today on Branding Strategy Insider, more on the Song story and how we created a differentiated brand in a cluttered, uninspired marketplace:
Once we had gone "boldly, where no man has gone before . . . " and designed an airline brand for women , it was important that men not be alienated in the process. Shortly after the new brand was introduced, we did some perception testing and found that while women "got" the brand right away, men were "curious" about it. That, of course, was a good thing, travel cuts toronto since their curiosity would lead them to at least try it once! Our marketing and product development team quickly got to work. Knowing at the outset that men would focus on the onboard satellite TV, the team insured that our offerings included a few ESPN and business channels like CNBC and Bloomberg. We also decided to create an interactive trivia game using the TV monitors, and enabling travel cuts toronto budget rent a car old town kissimmee customers to compete against each other, no matter where their seats were on the airplane. This turned out to be a big hit. As did the good-sized budget rent a car old town kissimmee (yet healthy) organic sandwiches and wraps, and imported beer we offered with our "food for sale" program.
One of the key gender-neutral elements of the Song brand was its dedication to making flying fun again . Our Flight budget rent a car old town kissimmee Attendants were chosen travel cuts toronto for their pleasant personalities, and were encouraged to personalize, in a fun way, the in-flight service. This included the pre-flight, travel cuts toronto safety and arrival announcements, and the manner in which they sold food and drink. After a few months, budget rent a car old town kissimmee we decided to commission the production of "Song of the Day" safety briefings, which set the usually tedious safety announcements travel cuts toronto to a variety of musical themes ranging budget rent a car old town kissimmee from the Irish Jig to Flamenco to a Barry White-like Soul rendition. Even the FAA Inspectors liked these, since they all got the customers to pay attention to the Safety briefings like they had never done before!
Throughout the brand-building process, we continuously surveyed our customers to see if we were on the right track and where we should focus our energies to make improvements. Interestingly, all of the good things we did and offered seemed to be expected by the women in our audience, who were, of course, our target. Again, they "got" the brand and expected budget rent a car old town kissimmee us to meet the brand's promise . Men, on the other hand, once they tried it, were perhaps budget rent a car old town kissimmee somewhat surprised, but clearly more impressed. In fact, flight attendants occasionally reported that they sometimes had trouble getting people off the airplane.
One of the other measures that customer service organizations use to gauge their standing in the marketplace is the Customer Compliment-to-Complaint travel cuts toronto Ratio. This ratio is generally skewed toward the complaint side, since customers are much more prone to write the company about an issue they had, than they are to compliment a company about their experience. In the case of Song, the ratio went the other way. Customers wanted to let the Company know they liked their experience and wanted more of the same. Interestingly, a disproportionate travel cuts toronto number of complimentary letters came from men, many of whom were captains of industry, including the CEO of one of our nations largest railroads, the creator of an iconic British brand and airline, a world famous budget rent a car old town kissimmee celebrity wrestler and quite a few Jazz and Rock musicians. But most interesting of all, the coveted Frequent Flyer base, who were not-at-all our target, voted over-whelming support for the new brand in a special Frequent Flyer survey Delta commissioned.
Was it true that "Where Women Go, Men Will Follow", or were the gender neutral attributes of the brand strong enough to attract the non-targeted audience? Probably, a little of each, but what became clear to us as brand builders was that alienating travel cuts toronto any potential customer travel cuts toronto was not a good business practice, but building budget rent a car old town kissimmee on curiosity, choice, personality and fun would stimulate traffic in an otherwise mundane, commoditized industry.
travel cuts toronto budget rent a car old town kissimmee To deliver budget rent a car old town kissimmee on the brand promise travel cuts toronto every day, we needed the employees to buy-in budget rent a car old town kissimmee and become completely engaged. How we went about this most important aspect is the subject of my next installment on living budget rent a car old town kissimmee the brand!
-- John Selvaggio is the former budget rent a car old town kissimmee President of Song Airlines. In his 30+ years as an executive in the airline industry he helped airline brands discover and adopt new strategies to enhance the customer experience and drive profit budget rent a car old town kissimmee in a highly competitve environment. As partner and brand strategist at The Blake Project , he helps airline brands travel budget rent a car old town kissimmee cuts toronto create value through unique brand differentiation workshops that lead airline brands out of the commodity space. travel cuts toronto Contact us for more .
Great post but I don t understand this sentence: what became clear to us as brand builders was that alienating travel cuts toronto any potential customer was not a good business travel cuts toronto practice . I m not sure if it s the use of the word alienating but with brand it s all about focus and making choices. Knowing who your customer is and who your customer isn t. Otherwise you ll be all things to all people and we know what that means....bad times.
Happy to elaborate Darren. The target remained clear - in this case, women travelers. While we directed all of our efforts toward attracting our target budget rent a car old town kissimmee audience, we did so knowing that women make over 80% of family liesure travel budget rent a car old town kissimmee cuts toronto budget rent a car old town kissimmee travel decisions. Their families budget rent a car old town kissimmee included men and male children, whom we did not want to alienate , since making a family budget rent a car old town kissimmee trip pleasurable is one of the target customer s desires in planning a trip. So we were careful not to cross the line of trying to be all things to all people , and created a brand that hit its target and was still able to attract customers outside of the bullseye. budget rent a car old town kissimmee The Song brand was built on focus and discipline - which as you know, is critical for brands.
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The Blake Project offers comprehensive seminars and brand education workshops on many key branding topics. travel cuts toronto They are designed to educate and empower executives, budget rent a car old town kissimmee brand managers and marketing professionals to release the full potential of their brands. Download Brand Education budget rent a car old town kissimmee Topics.pdf (675.2K)
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