Marketing Principles and Practice

This document provides an overview of key marketing concepts and strategies used in the airline industry, with a focus on Air Canada. It discusses branding, product strategy, promotional strategy, and ethical considerations. The document also explores the marketing mix (7Ps) and STP model used by Air Canada. Recommendations for the company are also provided.

Marketing Principles
and Practice

1. INTRODUCTION
Airline industry
Airline industry can be referred to as the corporate sector which is engaged in designing,
manufacturing, usage and operations of airlines (Baker, 2016 In other words, it can be said that
airlines industry witnesses the transportation of passengers as well as freight from single location
to another against which prices are charged from customers.
Air Canada
Air Canada is acknowledged to be the biggest airline company as well as flag carrier of
Canada in relation with passengers carried and size of the fleet. This company is regarded as a
founding member of the Star Alliance® network. With the help of its 28 members airline
network, the respective airlines company provides its clientele with access to over 1320
destinations across the world (Armstrong and et. al., 2014).
Growing value of marketing within airline industry
The marketing of products is much easier than that of services. In this regard, one of the
most prominent and increasing industry across the globe is regarded to be airlines sector. To
keep the top positioning of this sector maintained, companies pertaining to this industry make
use of extensive marketing techniques as well as channels (Alserhan, 2017). The respective
sector witnesses a large number of technological trends on a rapid basis, looking upon which
airlines introduce several changes within its confines. The offerings of airline sector need to be
promoted among the customers in an effective manner so that they get persuaded to experience it
once. This helps in building extensive goodwill across the global periphery.
Structural response
The following project contains an overview of key marketing concepts and terms
pertaining to airline sector. Also, it consists of the marketing strategies which provided
assistance to Air Canada in achievement of corporate objective. Further, it comprises of the
marketing idea as well as principles used within the respective airlines (Kotler and Armstrong,
2013). Apart from this, it encompasses the interconnection of marketing with other business
functions. Lastly, recommendations are given for the firm to enhance effectiveness of company.
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2. The Main Body
a)
Branding
Branding strategy is seen as the long term plan of the company that is developed by them
for attaining success. Branding is mainly done towards specific goals and objectives that
respective organisation wants to attain in the particular period of time. With reference to Air
Canada, it has been analysed that the respective manager of this company follows effective brand
strategy that is developed by focusing on all business activities along with the effective
alignment with needs and requirement of customers (Kotler and et. al., 2014). Air Canada make
use of hashtag campaigns as its branding strategy in order to develop their effective brand image
among customers.
Product Strategy
Product strategy is mainly seen as the base or foundation for every product. This allows
businesses to start from zero stage and develop effective product or service according to the
customers needs and expectations (Ennew, Waite and Waite, 2013). With reference to Air
Canada, manager of this company ensures that develop effective service strategy according to
customers requirement only so that they can get satisfied at higher extent. Here, the main focus
of company is on providing airline services to its customers at affordable prices that comes under
their budget only.
Promotional Strategy
Promotional strategy refers to the effective strategy adopted by business enterprises for
promoting their products and services in appropriate manner. In context of Air Canada, the
manager of this company prefers to use social media as its main promotional activity. Social
media is helpful for Air Canada is spreading awareness about their services and additional
features among customers (Christopher and Peck, 2012). The company also make use of
promotional campaigns on various social media channels that informs customers and about
existing as well as upcoming offering of the company. This directly results in the higher
increment in sales performance of the Air Canada as it has more number of loyal customers with
them.
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b)
Air Canada is a globally renowned airlines and the most profitable and appealing within
the confines of Canada. This globally recognized airline inflates its local and international
networking by way of Capacity Purchase Agreements entered into, with regional airline
companies. Such entities operate airlines in lieu of Air Canada (Burns, Bush and Sinha, 2014).
This airline firm put due emphasis over marketing in order to gain an edge over rival firms and
inflate its existing market share as well as value. The marketing overview of Air Canada is given
as follows:-
Mission: The mission statement of Air Canada is “Connecting Canada and the Globe.”
Vision: The vision statement laid down by the management of Air Canada is “Building
loyalty through passion and innovation.”
Objectives: The management of Air Canada has laid down the following objectives for
2019-20:-
 To attain annual EBITDAR margin of 17-20%.
 To have an annual Return on Invested Capital of 13-16%.
 To increase the reach of company by 10%. To enhance the revenues and profits of company by leveraging social media marketing
campaigns.
Overall marketing strategy: Air Canada leverages upon social media marketing
campaigns to appeal to a large base of people and thereby fulfil their needs and demands to
enhance the market standing of company at international scale (Gbadamosi, 2013).
Ethical Considerations
The ethical considerations that need to be taken into account by Air Canada are safety
and security concerns (Benitez and et. al., 2018). The entity needs to ensure that customers have
access to safe travel at all times so that they can derive maximum satisfaction from them. In this
relation, it has been ascertained that Air Canada attains its objective in an ethical manner so that
it does not have to face any legal complications.
c)
Marketing is an extensive activity which encompasses several concepts and principles
that are applied by organisations operating across the global periphery (Lilien, Rangaswamy and
De Bruyn, 2013). In this regard, Air Canada also applied certain marketing concepts and
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principles. It has been ascertained that the respective airlines company applies marketing mix
(7Ps) and STP model in its day to day organisational tasks and practices. These are explained in
a detailed manner as follows:-
Marketing Mix (7Ps)
Marketing mix is a concept that is applied by the management of Air Canada with a view
to devise the marketing strategy for company. (Shaw, 2016) With respect to this, the marketing
mix, i.e., the 7Ps of this airlines company is presented as follows:-
Product:
Air Canada is the biggest local as well as international airlines of Canada when measured
in terms of size of fleet as well as total number of passengers carried by it. This airline provides
services to over 200 airports within a total of 6 continents. This airlines company has a number
of subsidiaries which pertain to its offerings. These are enlisted below:-
 Air Canada Cargo
 Air Canada Vacations
 Air Canada Rouge
 Air Canada Express
 Air Canada Jetz The organisation operates Maple Leaf Lounges across the global periphery whereby the
access is complimentary for clients travelling by way of business class or to its elite,
platinum and gold members. Also, the entity has providence of frequent flyers program
whereby a client can gather and spend points as well as gain status & lucrative rewards
(de Boer, 2018).
Price:
Air Canada appeals to a large base of people by offering the exceptional feature of lowest
price guarantee. Hereby, the respective airlines company claims that if anyone finds a ticket
which is priced lower than that of Air Canada in a time span of 24 hours from execution of ticket
purchase from organisational website, them a promo code of $50 together with the difference
underlying between both the prices will be given to the client (D'Amore, 2019). This unique and
strong pricing strategy illustrates the faith that company has in relation to delivery of tickets at
reasonable prices opposed to the rival firms within the same corporate sector. The entity provides
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its base of clients with a Basic Economy fare class that is evident to be relatively cheaper than
the regular Economy Class.
Place:
Air Canada is headquartered at Montreal, Quebec. The respective airlines company has 4
of its primary hubs situated within the confines of Calgary, Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal.
The services of this company pertain to transmission of passengers within more than 185
locations in a total of 6 continents.
Promotion:
Company has its own community of people making use of social media accounts
whereby they leave direct direct links to the app which has resulted in increment in their usage.
Further, the entity began hashtag campaigns and proactively executed them on a number of
social media accounts. Some of the most renowned campaigns run by Air Canada are
acknowledged to be “Hello/Goodbye”, “You and I were meant to fly” and many more (Case and
Jones, 2018). Apart from this, the tag line of this brand ‘Your World Awaits’ is appealing
enough to gain the attention of customers and persuade them to experience the services provided
by Air Canada once (Air Canada Marketing Mix (4Ps) Strategy, 2019).
People:
Main focus of management team of Air Canada is to keep the level of satisfaction high. It
has been identified that company has a strong market position within Canada. Staff members
feedbacks are essential and company mainly focuses on the design & final décor in order to keep
the staff members as well as customers satisfaction high. Air Canada is a service industry where
workforce came into contact on a regular basis with their customers (Sivaramakrishnan and
Carvalho, 2019). Therefore, it employee rating plays very essential role in order to attain positive
results. Along with this, they have a tag line which is “Flight Path” shows the overall
commitment and professionalism of the staff members.
Process:
It is said that, Air Canada have their own well maintained procedure for both customers
and staff members. In case of customers, they can book their tickets with the help of mobile
applications and online and make sure that they get highly satisfied facilities (De Boer, 2018). It
is the process which mainly focuses on timely deliverables so that positive outcome will be
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produced within given time frame. This element of marketing mix highly emphasis on customer
satisfaction.
Physical Evidence:
In the beginning, company have light blue colour which is later changed to black and also
white colour with a black belly along with red Maple Leaf accents. Generally this shows the
contrasting season of Canada along with the wildlife of that country (Sivaramakrishnan and
Carvalho, 2019). It has also been analysed that rebranding of the company is mainly done with
the aim to provide more confidence to the staff members so that they will be able to work in a
more positive manner. Furthermore, with the help of this up gradation, large number of
customers will be attracted towards Air Canada.
3.
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4. CONCLUSIONS
According to the above analysis it is summarised that marketing holds immense
significance for a corporation in the modern era. This is so because it aids the entity in setting
effective networking with people in order to influence them to make a purchase. Further, it is
analysed that STP model helps in ascertainment of target audience and ways to position
organisational offerings among them. Strategy of Product, branding as well as promotional
strategy are some of the marketing concepts that are relevant to respective airlines company.
Additionally, it is ascertained that marketing is effectively interlinked to other business
functions, thereby providing aid to a firm in attaining the corporate objectives within due course
of time.
5. RECOMMENDATIONS
On the basis of above detailed discussion over Air Canada, the following
recommendations have been devised:-
CHIP CARD: The respective airlines should leverage Unique Selling Point by launching
a new system of CHIP CARD which would provide travellers with the opportunity of directly
swiping and entering the lounge without waiting for boarding passes. With this, Air Canada
would also be able to make the bookings easier for customers. At present, this technique is not
being used by any airlines company across the globe. Thus, application of this system would
provide edge to the entity over other rival firms.
Tactical Marketing: Air Canada should put due emphasis over market disruption by
installing 4 pistons over its engine. As a result of this, horsepower inflates and operations can be
executed in a faster manner. Further, the marketing department should advertise this by
modifying their mission such that this feature can be highlighted. The new mission of the firm
can be "Connecting the Globe and Canada by capitalising on speed" (Air Canada shifts
marketing focus to increase global presence, 2019).
Web Analytics: The respective airlines firm is suggested to make use of web analytics
tool for measurement of range of promotional and advertisement campaigns. This tool will
ascertain which one out of the all campaigns provides aid to Air Canada in enhancing its
knowledge about customer behaviour and setting a healthy relationship with them. Further, it
would also aid in analysis of visitors' behavioural pattern over company's website. This will
allow Air Canada to gain the attention of new customers and retain the old ones.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
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Armstrong, G. and et. al., 2014. Principles of marketing. Pearson Australia.
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Benitez, J. and et. al., 2018. Evolution of the impact of e-business technology on operational
competence and firm profitability: A panel data investigation. Information &
Management, 55(1), pp.120-130.
Burns, A. C., Bush, R. F. and Sinha, N., 2014. Marketing research (Vol. 7). Harlow: Pearson.
Case, B. and Jones, O., 2018. Country of Origin branding: The Case of Air Canada.
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D'Amore, L. J., 2019. Marketing Peace Through Tourism: A 35 Year History of IIPT.
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Online
Air Canada Marketing Mix (4Ps) Strategy. 2019. [Online]. Available Through:
<https://www.mbaskool.com/marketing-mix/services/17684-air-canada.html>.
Air Canada shifts marketing focus to increase global presence. 2019. [Online]. Available
Through:<https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/
marketing/air-canada-spends-more-than-ever-on-marketing/article18739469/>.
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