Professional Selling Air Canada - Case Study

Running head: PROFESSIONAL SELLING 1
Professional Selling
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Prospect Background Information
Comprehensive Company Overview
Air Canada is the largest airline carrier in Canada in consideration of the fleet size
and passage carried. The airline was founded back in the year 1936, and since then, it has been
able to provide scheduled and charter air transport for its passages and cargo to approximately
207 destinations s all over the world. The airline began ferrying its passengers in the year 1937
on 1st September, with an average of 400 employees. However, its transcontinental frights
started in 1939 with an 18 Lockheed aircraft. Trans–Canada Airlines was the predecessor of Air
Canada and was crested after registration of the federal government as a branch of Canadian
National Railway popularly known as (CNR). In the year 1942 there was a proposed merger of
Canadian Pacific Airlines with TAC, which was rejected by the prime minister (McFarland,
Rode & Shervani, 2016). Therefore TAC was left responsible for the provision of
transcontinental flights in Canada. In the 19190s, Air Canada experienced financial difficulties
due to a slump in the industry that occurred after the Persian Gulf War. The eventuality led to the
restructuring of the top airline executive, where it hired former Delta Airlines CEO to take
charge of its operation. The company merged its operation in the year2001 hence becoming the
twelfth largest air company in the world. Over the years, air Canada has worked to improve its
services by acquisition of new fleet and signing of joint venture agreement with countries like
China.
Product description
Air Canada offers flight services to various destinations all over the world.
Besides that, the airline provides its passengers with a variety of excellent in-flight and off-flight

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services. These services include inflight entertainment, free internet connection, personal screen
for each passenger, and overhead plasma movie screens. Besides that, the airline provides in-
flight meals where passengers are served with a wide variety of dishes and drinks by flight
attendants. Air Canada was the first airline company to offer mobile tracking services when it
introduced the air Canada cargo mobile app. Besides that, the company has also enabled its
customers to book their flights online through the Air Canada app supported by Apple device
(Chapman, Schetzsle & Wahlers, 2016).
Organizational Structure of the company
Air Canada is headed by the CEO, who is the vision carrier of the company. The
CEO is responsible for setting goals and targets; hence he is given a significant role to ensure
implementation and attainment of the set goals. The board of directors is responsible and
accountable to present reports from the CEO to the company's shareholders. The board consists
of seven directors with the chairman to the board as its head.
The company has a CFO who reports to the CEO on matters reported to him by those in
charge of financial planning. Other departments in the company include COO, network planning
engineering among others.
Recent News Articles relevant to potential advertising
According to the latest news article by the star newspaper, Canadian airline was
reported to be the worst airline due to the losses experienced in the company. The company was
reported to have lost $3.9 billion in market capitalization, recording a drop from January
(Mayberry, Boles & Donthu, 2018).

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Air Canada was also featured in recent news articles, and on televisions
advertising, it's to its customers on its leading benefits and attributes of its award-winning. The
advertisement talked of the unmatched services and amenities offered to the customers on the
flight first class category.
The possible business idea to be promoted by an advertising company
Air Canada can capture several business ideas for advertisement. These services
include catering services on board, consulting services, and flight studies services. Besides this,
an airline company can advertise on cargo transport services where it can assure customers of
cargo safety and tracking. Also, aircraft maintenance and airport currency exchange are other
business ideas open for advertisement by an airline company (Agnihotri, Gabler, Itani, Jaramillo
&Krush, 2017).
Advertising Campaigns
Agency Campaigns
Rethink Agency has applied different advertising platforms for various products
and services intending to reach the target market and convince different individuals to purchase
or use the advertised service or good. These advertising platforms are as follows.
Google Ads in this advertising platform the company carried out a burger king
campaign targeting people going on holidays to purchase burgers in a specific resort in
Canada .during the next weekend, the turnout was overwhelming (Baker & Delpechitre, 2016).

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Facebook ads: The Agency conducted a campaign termed as the mono eye
targeting tourists visiting a museum of old and new art. The officials reported an increase in the
number of tourists visiting the facility after the advertisement.
Instagram adds: The campaign marketed on this platform was known as FP tips. It was
meant to teach people about family planning, where after the campaign, many people adopted
different planning methods.
Bing Ads: The campaign advertised on this platform was known as fight dirt,
where children were always encouraged to clean their hands before meals. Due to the lack of
many appeals, the campaign was not successful.
Ad Mob: The Agency conducted a video game campaign to school going children .as a
result, many games were purchased during the school holidays (Mikolon, Kolberg, Haumann &
Wieseke, 2015).
Ad Colony: The Agency conducted a campaign informing football players on new
Adidas boots in the market. The company later reported a significant increase in its sales.
Air push: On this platform, the Agency used in-app burners to sensitize about forex
exchange. A significant number of unemployed youths later joined different forex trading
markets.
Twitter: This campaign conducted was termed as Organic valley, which were
nutritional supplements for diabetes patients. The company reported increased use of dietary
supplements (Itani, Agnihotri & Dingus, 2017).

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YouTube: The Agency conducted an advertisement on a new series known as
making off. Many people went online to purchase the movie after its release.
Website: The Agency also carried out a campaign termed as the house of
innovation targeting university student’s .due to the sort nature of the campaign; it didn't appeal
to students.
Prospect's Campaigns
Ad Colony: the prospects of Rethink Agency are carrying out a campaign on
astronaut reality by the use of this platform. The campaign is set to promote knowledge to
different groups of people on the outer space without leaving the earth (Baker & Delpechitre,
(2016).
YouTube: the platform is under current use by our prospect to carry out a
campaign termed as fighting sexism in shaving. The campaign is geared towards launching a
body hair brand meant for women.
Twitter: the platform has been used to carry out a campaign on Unicorn
Frappuccino. The campaign is about promoting millennial, which was a new product launched
by the Starbucks Company.

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Conclusion
Through the study and discussion above, it has been discovered that currently, it
is one of the airlines in the world offering the best services to the customers. It is estimated that
with time, the airline will be top airline offering excellent services across the world. This would
be achieved through several strategies. For the airline to achieve such great goals and objectives,
it should set up several strategies. This would include marketing the brand and offering the best
services as possible. It should as well make use of the other advertisement channels as discussed
above to achieve those great goals. I have learned that the expansion of the airlines and any other
company is determined by the quality of the services offered just like the Canada airline case
above.

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References
Agnihotri, R., Gabler, C. B., Itani, O. S., Jaramillo, F., & Krush, M. T. (2017). Salesperson
ambidexterity and customer satisfaction: Examining the role of customer demandingness,
adaptive selling, and role conflict. Journal of Personal Selling & Sales
Management, 37(1), 27-41.
Baker, D. S., & Delpechitre, D. (2016). An Innovative Approach to Teaching Cultural
Intelligence in Personal Selling. Journal for Advancement of Marketing Education, 24.
Baker, D. S., & Delpechitre, D. (2016). An Innovative Approach to Teaching Cultural
Intelligence in Personal Selling. Journal for Advancement of Marketing Education, 24.
Chapman, J., Schetzsle, S., & Wahlers, R. (2016). An innovative, experiential-learning project
for sales management and professional selling students. Marketing Education
Review, 26(1), 45-50.
Itani, O. S., Agnihotri, R., & Dingus, R. (2017). Social media use in B2b sales and its impact on
competitive intelligence collection and adaptive selling: Examining the role of learning
orientation as an enabler. Industrial Marketing Management, 66, 64-79.
Mayberry, R., Boles, J. S., & Donthu, N. (2018). An escalation of commitment perspective on
allocation-of-effort decisions in professional selling. Journal of the Academy of
Marketing Science, 46(5), 879-894.
McFarland, R. G., Rode, J. C., & Shervani, T. A. (2016). A contingency model of emotional
intelligence in professional selling. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 44(1),
108-118.

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Mikolon, S., Kolberg, A., Haumann, T., & Wieseke, J. (2015). The complex role of complexity:
how service providers can mitigate negative effects of perceived service complexity
when selling professional services. Journal of Service Research, 18(4), 513-528.