Singapore Airlines: Communication Strategy

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Elements of a promotional mix
Singapore airlines’ communication strategy
Competition
Observational learning as a marketing communication theory
Singapore airlines’ market segment
Communication strategy
Conclusion
References

Introduction

After a long day full of hustles and bustles, Ryan returns to his house exhausted and worn. The only thing he wants is a good rest free from any disturbance. He enters his house and throws himself on the couch. The television is switched on. All of a sudden an advert comes to the screen. A girl is relaxed on a couch and drinking Novida a soft drink product from the Coca-cola Company. After taking a sip, she is lifted and floats in the air. Immediately, Ryan develops an appetite for a drink. He wants something soft that can lift his spirit. He dashes out for a bottle of Novida.

This is one thing that an advert can do to an individual. It instills a desire for a product. In the case of Ryan, the advert was specific. It created a desire for Novida. Despite the wide array of soft drinks in the market, he went for it. Why? Because information had been passed to him about what he would feel like if he drank Novida. This means that passing information to a consumer is a very important aspect of marketing. Using the right channels with the right message for the right segment of the market can increase drastically the market share of a product. It is therefore important for a firm to identify the appropriate communication strategies for a given market in order to improve its sales. In this essay Singapore airlines’ communication strategies will be analyzed and a model communication strategy given.

Elements of a promotional mix

What are the major elements and dimensions of communication? To understand this, one has to master the four promotional mixes. Tutor to (2009) defines a promotional mix as a business organization’s total marketing communication program. These involve the four major elements which are advertising, personal selling, sales promotion and public relations. These four elements form the total means that an organization can use to communicate to its existing and potential customers (Tutor2U 2009).

Advertising can be termed as a non-personal communication where the business organization pays the media to inform and persuade the market about an idea or product. In this form of communication, the message in question and the medium through which the message is reaching the intended audience are very vital. The second element is personal selling. This is a one on one verbal communication with a potential client with an ultimate aim of closing a sale. The third element is promotional selling. In this form of communication, the business organization provides incentives to the potential and existing customers to retain them. Finally, the fourth element is public relations or publicity which is also provision of information about a product or service in the media without paying for it directly (Tutor2U 2009).

Singapore airlines’ communication strategy

Singapore Airlines is one of the most established airline services on the Asian continent. In its integrated services, it provides flight services to many destinations in the world including Europe, Africa, Australia and America. In the financial year 2007/2008, Singapore Airlines raked in a total profit of $2,049 million. This was attributed to the high demand experienced in the market. Its shareholders were entitled to a dividend of $1. With such big profits, there have to be methods with which the airline used to communicate to its customer base. Let’s see the communication plan used by this airline thus analyze its weakness and strength. We will also provide a communication plan that will fit Singapore airlines to make it increase its customer base (Singapore airlines 2009).

Currently, a Singapore airline has employed various techniques to ensure communication of information of products and services to their existing customers and their potential customers. This might be the result of the good profits during the 2007/2008 financial year. To start with, Singapore airlines is using promotional selling as a strategy to market themselves. In their programs, they have included what they call bonus points. These are points that customers of Singapore airlines receive through traveling with the airline or its partners. Also, customers of their partnering business organizations are bound to benefit from these bonus points. An accumulation of these points entitles one to several miles of free travel depending on the number of points that one has accrued. What is the importance of this promotion? Through this promotion, those passengers traveling in the partnering aircraft will have the opportunity to travel in Singapore airline as result of the redeemed points making them aware of the services offered by this airline service (Chan 2000).

Singapore air has had healthy brand equity for a long time. This is an attribute to its exemplary brand strategy. Many boardrooms of other Asian airlines do not directly take responsibility for the brand strategy. This is different from Singapore airlines whose board has assumed full leadership of the brand strategy. This has given it favorable brand equity and made it act as the case study for both established and starting airline companies in Asia (Asian Pacific Forum 1997).

Singapore air experienced competition since its inception in the market as there were no domestic roots forcing it to enter into competition with international government airlines. This forced them to develop a unique branding strategy. True to their word, they have based their competitive edge on quality, technology and innovation intermingled with outstanding customer care services. These have been the core messages in their advertisements that run in the media houses. Unlike other airlines which try to market all their products and advantages at once, Singapore air focuses only on the quality of their onboard services to persuade their potential customers. Their adverts are of high quality insinuating the expected quality of services offered (Roll 2004).

Another powerful tool for the competitive advantage of Singapore airlines is the use of the Singapore girl. Its cabin crew is made up of typical Singaporean girls in specially designed Malay Sarong kebaya uniforms. They are associated with warmth and caring, gentle and elegant nature. It is this girl who has been used in most of the adverts therefore instilling the feeling of those attributes of the girl being transferred to the airline qualities (Hoffer & Gittel 2007).

Another strategy put in place for communication is the use of advertisements on the Internet. These activities started in June 2007. In that month, Singapore airlines introduced an interactive microsite on which all details of the progress of the company’s A380 planes could be attained. In the month that followed, Singapore airlines introduced the Internet site, Krisshop.com which offered information on the services provided (Singapore Airlines 2009).

Competition

The greatest competition has been from the low-cost American airlines which changed their onboard strategies and started charging for the onboard services. This allowed them to reduce their prices thus offering comparatively low charges. These being the strength of the Singapore airlines, they did not go for the same strategy. They have maintained top quality free onboard services including being the first airline to introduce hot foods on board. This phenomenon has helped them define their customers. Most price-sensitive customers have opted for low-cost planes at the expense of onboard services (Fullbrook 2004).

In January 2008, Singapore Airlines became the first airline to advertise its fares which included taxes, surcharges and other fees. They became the first airline to do so as most of the airlines hid these charges (Hooper 2005).

Observational learning as a marketing communication theory

By basing on the theories of communication, we can come up with a communication strategy to ensure that Singapore air maintains its number of customers. Observational learning is a psychological theory about how people learn by observing others. This theory points out that human beings learn through observing and copying from other people. This theory brings out four major processes in the hierarchy of learning. The first process is attention. For one to learn from another person’s actions he has to pay attention to how the other person is behaving and the consequences of this type of behavior. The second process is the process of retention. In this stage, the learner keeps what he has observed in his memory bank. The third stage is the stage of reproduction. In this stage, the person has the capability of responding through the conversion of the mental images into actual behavior. The final stage is motivation. In this stage, the respondent will only be in position to respond in a given manner if he is motivated by the likely outcomes of the response (Michael & Solomon et al).

Singapore airlines’ market segment

It is clear that Singapore Airlines has had its brand strategy based on onboard services and technology. This clearly helps define their customer segment. Most of their customers are not price sensitive but quality sensitive. This defines an up-class market of business people and high-ranking officials. Therefore to have a business communication plan, one must put this segment of customers in mind.

Communication strategy

Kennaugh (2003) gives a guideline on how to create an effective communication plan. The basic foundation is identifying the target market and finding their behavior in terms of buying, selling and communications. As portrayed by Singapore airlines, the target market in question is the high-class service-oriented people who have no sensitivity to the price. In most cases, their buying behavior is characterized by the use of the internet through their laptop computers. The Internet should therefore be the medium of communication (Kennaugh 2003).

According to the theory of behavioral learning, the first process is usually attention. Singapore airline should therefore base their effort to capture attention of this group of people by using the Singapore girl. The attributes of gentleness, warmth, care, and elegance should be stressed. A clear plot of how one can benefit from these attributes and the high-tech planes like the A380 which fly long distances should be made (Kochan 2006). For example, a successful business person can be used to portray how the Singapore girl can show love and warmth and also how Singapore air using its long-distance flying planes can offer non-connected flights from Singapore to Chicago. These benefits will help in the customer’s retention ability. This will lead to the third level of behavioral learning theory which is reproduction. When the person who saw the advert on the Internet about the advantages of traveling with Singapore airline and stored the information in his memory bank realizes the need to travel, he will try to copy the behavior of the successful business person on the advert. This will, of course, be based on the likely outcomes motivation. This motivation will be instilled by the services offered by the Singapore girl.

Conclusion

In conclusion, by basing on the plan above, Singapore airlines will have observed all the decision areas for an effective communication plan. According to Kennaugh (2003), the decision areas are: what is the objective? Which is to communicate to the high-class travelers, what is the message? Which is to communicate the unrivaled onboard and off-board services offered by Singapore airlines, which vehicles to use? This is the Internet as most of these people have no time for other media and also they save time through online ticketing and finally the budget which is quite cheap in terms of setting up websites.

References

Asian Pacific Management Forum. (1997) “Asian Airline Industry Heading for Shakeup,” Asian Business Strategy & Street Intelligence Ezine. 2009. Web.

Chan, Daniel, “Air Wars in Asia: Competitive and Collaborative Strategies and Tactics in Action,” Journal of Management Development, 2000, 19, 6, pp 473-488.

Fullbrook, David, “Asia’s Lessons From Unfriendly US Skies,” Asia Times Online, 2004. 2009. Web.

Gittel, Hoffer, & Kochan, Thomas, (2007), “Lean Production in the Air: Low Cost Competition Taking off in the Global Airline Industry and Implications for Employment Relations,” Labour and Employment Relations Association. 2009. Web.

Hooper, Paul, “The Environment for Asia’s New and Evolving Airlines,” Journal of Air Transport Management, 2005, 11, 5, pp 335-347.

Kennaugh, Cindy, (2003) “Developing a Marketing Communications Plan.” Microsoft Office Online, 2009. Web.

Kochan, A, Thomas, (2006) “Low Cost Competition in the Global Airline and Implications for Employment Relations.” 2009. Web.

Michael R. Solomon, et al (2001) Consumer Behaviour: Buying, Having and Being, 3rd Canadian Edition. Scarborough, ON: Prentice Hall.

Roll, Martin (2004) “Singapore Airlines” Brandchanell.com, 2009. Web.

Singapore Airlines, “Singapore Airlines Annual Report 2007/2008” Web.

Tutor2U, (2009), “Promotion- Introduction to the Promotional Mix,” Web.

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