Air Transport
Article | July 15, 2022
This week, the GE Gas Power team launched season five of Cutting Carbon, their award-winning podcast that focuses on climate change, the basics of what decarbonization is and the technologies behind it. In season five, the team is focused on decarbonization closer to home and invited Arjan Hegeman, GE Aviation’s general manger for advanced technologies, to talk about the future of flight.
Learn more about the role of GE Aviation’s technologies available today and in development for tomorrow to make aircraft engines more fuel efficient and reduce carbon emissions. Open fan, hybrid electric and hydrogen combustion are all discussed by Hegeman and the hosts. Over two episodes, Hegeman also explains the importance of Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF), along with the new engine technologies, to help the aviation industry reach its goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
The Future of Flight is a two-part episode, and can be found as Episode 27 and Episode 28 under Cutting Carbon. You can listen to the podcast here or on your favorite streaming platform!
The aviation industry is at an inflection point for new technology introduction and acceleration of technology development, Hegeman says. GE Aviation is currently developing its next-generation suite of engine technologies, including open fan engine architecture, hybrid-electric propulsion, and advanced thermal management concepts. GE Aviation is also supporting industry initiatives to approve and adopt 100% SAF and is partnering on a new flight demonstration program to test zero-carbon hydrogen fuel combustion.
GE’s ambition is to be a net zero company by 2050, including the Scope 3 emissions from the use of sold products. GE is also committed to being carbon neutral by 2030 in its own facilities and operations, including Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions.
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Defense and Space
Article | June 8, 2022
Although airlines only contribute to 2% of global emissions today, research indicates that this number could rise if air travel continues to grow. As such, airlines need to adapt and find new ways to become more sustainable. Successful implementation of eco-conscious strategies will see carriers achieve higher profits and maintain the trust of customers.
SimpliFlying has a long history of helping airlines craft the future of travel and we believe that addressing climate change is essential to rebuilding trust in the aviation industry.
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Design and Engineering
Article | January 7, 2022
Failure is beneficial for many reasons. But important is to manage and survive the onslaught of errors. With respect to bold attempts like adopting a new strategy, making judgments about the market, bad publicity, launching new products or services, and more like these often make airline marketers discourage due to a little or huge foul.
The list also includes branding. Airline branding mistakes are often seen when businesses try either to aim to re-position in the market or create awareness among customers. If you are making branding mistakes, then remember that a combination of poor communication and ineffective brand planning causes one of the worst branding disasters!
Aviation Branding Mistakes of All-Time
Branding any airline company is challenging. When bad decisions about branding strategies happen, it costs huge to businesses. And most of the aviation businesses do it habitually. On this note, mistakes could happen in various ways. But some aviation branding mistakes shouldn’t be ignored at all. Mistakes can hurt your business hard. So, let’s highlight the common mistakes that can happen while branding for aviation and how you should avoid them.
Implementation of Rigid Strategies
Implementation of rigid branding strategies for aviation results in economic slumps
Airlines need flexible marketing strategies to control the cost of labor and acquisition in order to balance the brand image.
-Lauda, Marketing-In-Chief, Southwest Airlines
While any significant shift in airline business strategy, like the pandemic forced, usually takes two to three years to implement. Therefore, you should design branding strategies that could afford the room for adjustments. In addition, those strategies will revive your older market position. Failing to do so could lead your airline company’s image to suffer a massive loss.
So, what can you do ahead?
Implement unique branding strategies for aviation to strengthen the value of your company. For this, you need to work and pay attention constantly to existing and potential customers you deal with. By understanding their perspective, marketers will be able to bring uniqueness to strategies. Following this process will ease you to adjust and cope up with the current economic condition.
Overlooking SEO
The entire aviation industry is going digitalized, especially after the pandemic fall. SEO is one of the most significant areas of digital marketing. So, if you do not master SEO, you are lagging behind competitors in branding for aviation. Your target audience/existing audience should never find difficulty in discovering your brand. This is the only rule of conducting tested SEO practices. It is because overlooking SEO means your customers are gone.
So, here’s what to do instead.
Try to find out what keywords are becoming relevant every day. Keep a watch at what keywords your competitors include to rank their brand name. Check relevant keywords for your brand message. Also, make sure about the trending keywords and how they are being searched. After you have mastered this metric, create branding strategies that are fit for your company.
A Disconnect with Audience
Failing to connect with an audience is the most significant mistake. Conducting inappropriate research on target audiences makes it hard to know how to connect with them. To understand it, you will have to think creatively and strategically simultaneously. For that, your team should create the best marketing design materials to attract a wide net of customers.
What can you do more?
While you connect with customers, an innovative perspective on your upcoming plans should be out of the box. Thinking in this way will help to reveal the gaps, problems, and undiscovered opportunities to make your brand better. Also, you will get deep insights about customers by directly reaching out through social media. You can use forums, email campaigns, loyalty programs, and other ways to connect.
If you overcome this mistake, you will be able to connect with your potential customers. To have your criteria is essential. And then, you would be surprised to know how enthused some customers will be about a glimpse into the potential future of a product or service they will gain from your company.
Becoming too Generic
Coming across too generic ideas of branding for aviation will give a bad impression on your airline company. So, what constitutes this aviation branding mistake? Let’s know here
• Depending on stock imagery
• Forgetting on your core branding elements—for example, using a generic logo
• Having a similar brand name as competitors’
• Offering a similar product/service similar as competitors’
• Usage of non-specific/non-industrial terms in marketing materials
These points mean that the more generic your brand will showcase, the less unique you appear to the audience. A generic brand reflects being unprofessional, slapdash, or uninteresting. It’s clear—who would want to buy products or services from.
What should you do instead?
If you can offer a better or different picture of your airline brand, do it, even if you have to raise your budget. Connect a great designer and take full advantage of their experience.
Your designer can help with much more than the standards of the branding work. Do some market research for brand promotion/positioning strategies to understand deeper. By doing so, you can leverage the complete value expertise and implement it in your branding techniques.
Branding is One-time Action
The action of branding in one time only is an old-school industry policy of aviation. Today is the era of digitalization, where still many existing aviation companies are practicing this approach. If your company falls in this category, then hold on and restrict it now. This is the time when your airline company needs a tangible branding suite, humanization approach. It should also include the defined message, value, logo, and other elements. However, the work doesn’t stop with these elements. The fact is, branding is an endless process.
So, what do you need to do?
You need to work diligently by keeping a very sharp razor focus on every effort associated with the branding process. So that you can continue to carve your company’s position in the market and stand out. Also, this will help your company stand out in customers’ minds. And hence, this will automatically strengthen your brand.
Putting Branding Responsibilities on One Department
Branding efforts are not only reserved for the marketing department. Instead, it should involve efforts along across departmental actions as well.
There could be multi-departmental knowledge that could save you from poor branding. Might your marketing team’s efforts like the design or PR do not necessarily work perfectly. It's also possible that they ideate a similar design repeatedly. And you may be unknowingly making significant aviation branding mistakes. Those mistakes must have damaged the credibility of the strategies and the motive. A lot of companies work for branding only with the marketing team. That is why they lack in many other parts of branding. If you have a similar working process in your company, you need to think again!
So, how to go ahead?
To create an effective aviation branding, involve the sales, customer service, IT, networking, data analyst department on board. By collaborating with them, you can initiate many efforts to create purposeful solutions for audiences. Even the representatives of each department can involve and create target-proof branding strategies for aviation.
Devaluing the importance of social media
Devaluing the power of social media has been one of the most common and costly aviation branding mistakes businesses are making. From being active on it to acting on the audience’s activities has a lot of differences in-between. Many companies listen, but they don’t hear. The problem is they don’t show to their audiences. And thus, results in disconnection among audiences.
So, what can you do instead?
In the current time, the travel market is now more fragmented with the continuous shifting behavior of travelers. In this case, social media’s role is becoming significant. It’s one platform where you can obtain feedback by creating polls, communicating, and engaging with marketing tricks. It's a free and paid platform. You have every reason to take advantage of it to showcase your company and brand message to a wide net of audiences. Doing it regularly—keeping your content relevant and updated- will make your brand image evergreen.
Save your Airline Company with Branding Bloopers
Now you must have gained some insights on how to avoid branding mistakes. So, it's time to bid farewell to branding mistakes. Remember that consumers, context, and quality design should be at the forefront of your mind when you begin with branding planning. It’s crucial to hone on the right branding strategy because it’s an important way to position your aviation company in the market.
The airline business is the biggest team sport in the world. When you are all consumed with fighting among yourselves, your opponents can run over you every day.
– By Gordon Bethune Former CEO of Continental Airlines
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the other airline branding mistakes businesses usually make?
Mistakes happen every day in airline businesses. But some common mistakes can cost a huge to a business. Here are some more airline mistakes:
• Aviation businesses tend to implement competitors’ tactics that become entirely different from their original business structure or current and future plans of action.
• Businesses do not think of investing in an aviation advertising agency.
• Usually forgets the purpose behind the brand creation.
• Create fake brand values
What should airline businesses avoid in brand planning?
While creating a brand, the airline businesses should avoid the following things:
• Underestimating your customers
• Untracking your marketing efforts
• Unwilling to invest
• Broad targeting
• Lack of USP
• Lack of research
What do airline customers want from airline businesses?
Airline customers are broad. They look for a wide array of services and products. So, your customer will always want some basic yet valuable things like committed customer service and satisfaction, easy approachability, content to understand solutions, and easy ways to invest.
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Defense and Space
Article | June 8, 2022
Whether you’re a small, newer airline looking to make a splash in the online world or a niche brand wanting to expand your customer base, you’ll need the right aviation marketing strategies in your arsenal. Similar to any other industry in today’s market, digital strategies are non-negotiable for brands in the aviation space who are hoping to connect with customers online and restore customer confidence in the aftermath of COVID-19.
And if you’re looking to take your brand to the digital skies, you need impactful strategies that help you offer a seamless customer experience. Let’s look at five strategies you can use for your aviation marketing strategy.
Aviation Marketing through Social Media
Visibility is a hugely important goal to achieve for any business. After all, how can you hope to attract new customers if no one knows about you? This is especially true and important for smaller airlines or those not operating in the commercial space. For example, when the average customer thinks about traveling by plane, they probably aren’t considering private airlines.
But if customers see content online about airlines, perhaps even highlighting that some private airlines fall in their price range, things can change. Once customers are aware of your company, you’re one step closer to securing a sale. The key is getting in the picture in the first place—something social media can do.
In addition to visibility, use social media to keep your customers informed. Despite us seemingly living in a post-COVID world, uncertainty is still a big factor that customers and airlines alike have to consider. Positive coronavirus results or transmission outbreaks can throw a wrench in travel plans right up until check-in, but social media offers a way to keep customers informed with live information and updates.
Airlines can use social media platforms like Twitter to post live updates on flights, including regular information on delays, but also more unexpected and yet super useful updates on things such as weather conditions at their destination.
And if you’re looking for international aviation marketing strategies as a multinational company, social media is a great way to connect with customers across territories too, thanks to its global reach.
Digital Customer Service Strategies
We saw during COVID-19 how important it was to provide quick, accurate information to customers, with things like up-to-date websites, live social updates, and automated texts for flight changes. These strategies all helped to streamline customer service offerings, as well as free up helplines and customer service booths at airports, and they have helped establish a new benchmark when it comes to customer service.
Having a solid customer service strategy in place is more important than ever—specifically, having one that’s responsive, flexible, and digital. This means offering smart chatbots that can assist with frequently asked questions, detailed guidance online addressing common challenges that customers face, and over-the-phone support in multiple languages that can enhance an international aviation marketing strategy.
Customer service might not seem like it matches with airline marketing, but going above and beyond for your customers is essential in creating the right reputation for your brand. Establishing your company as a gold-star service provider will not just give you something to shout about online, but it will also keep customers loyal and engaged with you too.
Mobile Solutions
We all know that the future is mobile—and it’s no different for aviation companies, who have that same pressure to keep up with technological advancements if they want to provide the best service possible for their customers.
Smartphones are an integral part of all of our lives, and they’re now just as important as ever, as people are taking their digital identification with them on their travels. Aviation companies must recognize the company they keep in the travel space, where mobile apps support customers on their journeys and trips—from navigation to weather and accommodation to ridesharing. Without an interactive app or fully mobile-friendly site, an airline’s strategy for marketing won’t be as impactful.
Customers used to have to carry printed versions of their flight documents in order to board, including boarding passes and booking confirmations, but things aren’t so paper-based anymore. Digital wallets that keep boarding passes safe and apps that store customers’ flight information are the norm now.
Mobile apps are also fantastic for driving loyalty programs. With an interactive app where customers can collect and cash in loyalty points, you not only provide an easy way for customers to enjoy their rewards, but also make flying more accessible and cost-effective.
In a post-COVID market, there is even more of an emphasis on contactless travel—another area where mobile solutions can play a key role. Phones allow consumers to have all their information handy, and other contactless technology helps facilitate airport management.
Content that Creates Real Connections
Digital content has the potential to reach a wider audience and, more importantly, turn readers into customers, so it should be included in any airline marketing strategy. Showing customers exactly what your company can do for them, and how you do it, is crucial for establishing strong branding and customer relationships. It’s how airlines can differentiate themselves from their competitors and add value to their services.
Meaningful content that your audience will trust includes user-generated content that offers real insights into what it’s like to be a customer of your company, such as honest reviews and feedback from real customers. You can deliver this content in a variety of ways—e.g., blogs, videos, social media, PR—but however you choose to do so, be sure to keep the story at the forefront of your narrative to create those all-important connections with customers.
Omnichannel Digital Experiences
Alongside social media, there are a slew of other digital channels that should be considered in your digital strategy. This is hugely important because of the myriad ways that consumers interact with the online world nowadays. If it’s not live Twitter updates, it’s check-in reminder emails. The point is that brands need to be present across different platforms and digital mediums in order to provide a competitive and effective experience for their customers.
For airlines, it’s about making sure that no matter what device a customer is using, their journey is cohesive and streamlined. They should be able to switch seamlessly between your website on their laptop and emails on a tablet, with the right information easy and quick to find in a consistently branded way.
It’s also worth considering that people tend to carry multiple devices with them while traveling, making it even more important for airlines and airports alike to offer omnichannel digital content to their customers.
Conclusion
Whatever part of your aviation branding or marketing you need support with, the team at TPT Digital can take your brand to new heights. The 2022 Aviation Festival is a great opportunity for learning, connection, and collaboration—come and say hello to us there!
Also, get in touch if you’d like to discuss how TPT Digital can support your paid social media content. We’re happy to give you a free quote.
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