Integrated Communication of Virgin Atlantic

Integrated communication of
Virgin Atlantic
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Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................2
Task 1..........................................................................................................................................................2
1. A) Organization background of Virgin Atlantic..................................................................................2
1. B) New market segment of Virgin Atlantic.........................................................................................3
1. C) Recommendations on developing awareness of this new market segment within Virgin Atlantic..4
Task 2..........................................................................................................................................................5
2. A) Concepts and benefits of branding new market segment................................................................5
2. B) Use of the communication campaigns and messages......................................................................8
2. C) Benefits and challenges of working with an external agency........................................................10
Task 3........................................................................................................................................................11
3. A) Recommendation on integrated marketing communication plan to target the new market segment
...............................................................................................................................................................11
3. B) Method used to measure the effectiveness of the integrating marketing communications plan....16
References.................................................................................................................................................19
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Introduction
The primary purpose of the paper is to provide information regarding the implementation
of the new market segment by Virgin Atlantic which enables to enhance their customer’s base in
the future. Furthermore, for developing the awareness of this new market segments, some
recommendations will be provided that can easily enhance their customers' base. Besides this,
the concepts and benefits of branding and also the use of communication campaigns concerning
the new market segment will be further discussed in this paper. Moreover, recommendations on
integrated marketing communication plan regarding one internal and one external stakeholder
and it measuring methods will also be discussed in this paper.
Task 1
1. A) Organization background of Virgin Atlantic
The organization Virgin Atlantic is a trading name of Virgin Atlantic International
Limited or Virgin Atlantic Airways Limited is the United Kingdom second largest long-haul
airline. The headquarters of Virgin Atlantic is situated in Crawley, West Sussex, England (Virgin
Atlantic, 2018). The company was established on 22 June 1984 as British Atlantic Airways by
Richard Branson, and its co-founders were Alan Hellary and Randolph Fields. In the beginning,
the flights fly between the Falkland Islands to Lender but in the present day its serves
internationally in the whole world. In today’s world, Virgin Atlantic serves over 30 destinations
in the world and about 24 flights are operate between US and London and 32 daily flights
operate between North America and the UK. The current CEO and Chairman of the firm are
Craig Kreeger and Stephen Murphy, and primarily the firm follows licensing modes of entry to
enter into the foreign market.
At present, this airline company and Virgin Holidays are controlled by Virgin Atlantic
Limited that is owned by Virgin group (51%) and by Delta Air Lines (49%) of Singapore (Virgin
Atlantic, 2018). The company possesses a revenue of 2,698 million pounds, and the operating
income was 154.3 million pounds till 2016 while it has 8,965 numbers of employees till 2016
(Chang et al., 2014). The company provides airline services to their consumers with the longest
and most comfortable seat and flat bed in business class and revolutionary Upper-Class Suite.
Along with this, they have a clubhouse named as Virgin Clubhouse at Heathrow that established
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in 2006. In this clubhouse, they provide a hair salon, a cocktail bar, a brasserie, a cow-shaped
spa, and a games room. Hence, Virgin Atlantic along with Virgin Clubhouse provides a B2C
business, and the main competitors of the firm are Air India, Malaysia Airlines, Singapore
Airlines, Qatar Airways, Air France, United Airlines and Emirates.
1. B) New market segment of Virgin Atlantic
It is seen that in the current trend the main market segment of Virgin Atlantic only to
provide passengers reliability and comfort mainly to the upper middle class, middle class, and
the corporates peoples. This market segment as well as targeting these groups of people do not
give so much profit in the business of Virgin Atlantic (Lancaster and Massingham, 2017). Due to
this reason, they develop a new market segment so that it can easily increase their business
growth as well as competitive advantage in the market. After doing the preliminary analysis and
the market analysis Virgin Atlantic a new market segmentation on the basis of demographic
segmentation. The demographic segmentation is based mainly on three marketing strategies one
for seasonal offerings, increase of routes and price niche. In concern, the holiday or seasonal
travel segment the firm provides various seasonal offers to their passengers, and according to this
strategy, it will enhance them to make a good relationship with their consumers.
The offers provided by them are mainly based on the tickets booked by each passenger,
according to their marketing segmentation more the number of tickets booked by an individual
consumer greater will be the discount rates (O'Connell and Williams, 2016). Hence applying this
marketing strategy, they not only increase their customer base, but in other words, it can easily
fulfill the customers' needs as per their expectation. According to this marketing segment the
firm Virgin Atlantic mainly targeted people that travel from one place to other due to their
business and also for the people who loved to travel in various destinations of the world. The age
of this group of people mainly lies in between 25 to 45 years and concerning to these groups of
people this new market segment is constructed. According to the route niche, this airline
company provides new airline services to the variable region of the world by their potential
growth rates in traveling. The new market segment that provides by Virgin Atlantic will be based
on long –haul and short-haul distance respectively.
In both the long-haul and short-haul carrier they provide a room for these business man
of age between 25 to 45 years where all sorts of economies with new technology and proper
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equipment are available (Angeloni, 2016). Therefore by this new market segment approach, the
firm can easily increase their customer's base as well as the competitor activities also increases.
In other words, by changing the pricing value for all sorts of traveling the firm can easily attract
a large number of travel loved customers of age between 25 to 45 years in the whole world. It
has been seen that most of the travel loving customers prefer to travel in other airline companies
where the price are quite less than Virgin Atlantic. Hence to grab these customers base the firm
build this new market segment strategy by simply lowering the fares depending on the distance
traveled. In other words, the market segmentation theory that states that both short and long-term
interest rates are not related to each other and thus by following this the firm develop all these
types of strategies that can give them both types of interests. In other words, the firm should use
product or service-led positioning model so the firm can easily tell their consumer about the
changes in services or products they are going to incorporate in their business. With the help of
this model the consumer can easily differentiate the previous and current service offerings of this
airline firm. Therefore, it is clear that by this new market segment the Virgin Atlantic firm can
easily attract their target customers as well as it also enhances their business growth in the
market.
1. C) Recommendations on developing awareness of this new market segment within
Virgin Atlantic
Internal communication with their employees will thereby help the manager of the firm to
easily elaborate their employees regarding the new market segmentation approach that should be
implemented by the firm in the current trend (Merkert and Webber, 2018). Hence for developing
the awareness of the new market segment, some recommendations are provided in concerning
the internal communication methods with their employees. The recommendations are as
follows:
One of the recommendations will be that the firm should arrange a presentation and
seminar program for both the employees as well as for the shareholders too. With the help of this
program, the firm can easily demonstrate their new market segment strategy to both of their
employees and their customers. In this program they offered two types of membership approach,
one is for the employees, and the other one is for the shareholders. Internal communication
defines as the communication between the employees of the firm and hence they build Business
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Rewards membership card for every employee of Virgin Atlantic where they provide every new
approach that is going to use by the company in their coming days (Forseth, 2017). In this
membership approach, every employee can easily communicate with their superiors regarding
any work related matter through online techniques. In other words, it also helps the lower rank
employee to directly communicate with their managers so that they can easily get an idea about
the new market segment strategy that Virgin Atlantic is going to apply in their operating
procedures in future.
Another recommendation for enhancing the internal communication approach that takes
place within this airline firm is that the managers of each department should arrange face to face
meetings with their staff members. Hence this will help the managers to easily provide a view to
their employees regarding the implementation of the new target market strategy and thereby it
also help them to build a good relationship with their employees (Chan and Denizci Guillet,
2016). In other words, the managers of each department should arrange these face to face
meeting once in a month regarding any work related matter or any sorts of operating changes that
take place in the firm. Thus, with these meeting approach, the firm can easily make good
communication with their employees which thereby help them to know about the new market
segment analysis of the firm.
In other words, it is also recommended that to enhance the internal communication
approach with the employees it is necessary for the firm to develop a company related
programing software that should only use by the employees. The software will build in such a
manner that only it can be signed in through employee ID so that no other outside persons should
use it (Rodríguez and O’Connell, 2018). Hence this will help the employees to get the update
about each new step the firm was going to implement in the future, and this will increase their
communication approach with their seniors.
Therefore, it can be said that all these three communication approaches will help both the
managers and the employees to get every information and also educate and persuade them
regarding the different new market segment approaches of Virgin Atlantic.
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