Analysis of British Airways Current Branding Strategy Report

This report analyzes the effectiveness of British Airways' current branding strategies, with a focus on achieving consumer satisfaction and gaining a competitive advantage. The research begins by outlining the research aim, objectives, and rationale, emphasizing the importance of brand innovation in the airline industry. A comprehensive literature review explores the concepts of corporate branding, brand innovation, and the specific branding strategies employed by British Airways, including radical, integrated, event, direct marketing and advertisement strategies. The report then delves into innovative branding strategies such as website personalization, data warehousing, custom audience advertisements, voice search optimization, and demand generation. The research methodology section details the use of both primary and secondary data, along with quantitative and qualitative data collection methods. The report concludes with a literature matrix summarizing key themes and ideas, highlighting the need for British Airways to focus on consumer loyalty and adapt to changing market dynamics. The analysis aims to evaluate the issues faced by British Airways in maintaining brand value and develop new innovative branding strategies for the airline to attain a competitive edge in the short-haul market.

Running head: EFFECTIVENESS OF BRITISH AIRWAYS CURRENT BRANDING
STRATEGY
The effectiveness of Current Branding Strategy of British Airways
Name of the University:
Name of the Student:
Authors Note:

1EFFECTIVENESS OF BRITISH AIRWAYS CURRENT BRANDING STRATEGY
Table of Contents
1. Research Aim...............................................................................................................................3
2. Research Objectives.....................................................................................................................3
3. Research Rationale......................................................................................................................3
4. Literature Review and Literature Matrix.....................................................................................4
4.1. The concept of Corporate Branding and Brand Innovation.................................................4
4.2. Current Branding Strategies of British Airways..................................................................6
4.3. Innovative Branding Strategies in Attaining Consumer Satisfaction and Competitive
Advantages..................................................................................................................................7
4.4. Literature Matrix..................................................................................................................9
5. Research Methodology..............................................................................................................10
5.1. Design................................................................................................................................10
5.2. Construction.......................................................................................................................11
5.3. Sample................................................................................................................................11
5.4. Procedure...........................................................................................................................12
5.5. Data Analysis.....................................................................................................................13
References......................................................................................................................................14

2EFFECTIVENESS OF BRITISH AIRWAYS CURRENT BRANDING STRATEGY
1. Research Aim
The aim of the research is to analyse the ways in which British Airways is seeking to
review the effectiveness of its current branding strategies along with generating an innovative
branding strategy for attaining sustainability in the short-haul market.
2. Research Objectives
The objectives that are to be attained through completion of the current research is
indicated below:
 To analyse the current brand strategies of British Airways and its effectiveness
 To evaluate the issues faced by British Airways in maintaining brand value and effective
consumer service
 To develop new innovative branding strategies for British Airways in order to attain a
competitive edge
3. Research Rationale
From analysing the branding strategies and marketing efforts of British Airways in
attaining increased consumer satisfaction it has been analysed that brand portfolio is deemed to
be one of the effective brand management strategies for an organisation to manage is several
brands at the same time in attaining brand extension. The rationale of the research is to analyse
the innovative branding strategies implemented by British Airways in positioning itself as a
trustworthy reputable brand through justifying their premium prices with an enhanced level of
consumer service (Ottman 2017). The research will also reveal that because of the company’s

3EFFECTIVENESS OF BRITISH AIRWAYS CURRENT BRANDING STRATEGY
dual position in both the highly competitive short-haul carrier markets where consumer
preferences differ, British Airways has always been accused of devaluing its reputable brand.
From the research, it will be evaluated that through prioritising cost cutting for
maintaining effective consumer service. The research will also have the rationale of revealing
that the global competition for the airline company has become fiercer and in response to such
competition in attaining competitive advantages, the organisations implement several brand
development strategies (Atwal and Williams 2017). In addition, brand innovation is also deemed
to be a concept to employ beading strategy in building an effective brand performance.
Most of the organisations do not acknowledge effective strategies of brand innovation
because of which they fail to attain increased market share. Moreover, there is also an increased
risk of losing their attained market share. The major factor in enhancing competitiveness in
British Airways is through maintaining brand innovation based on changing needs and desires of
consumers. Considering the same, the importance of brand innovation will be explained in the
current research that will range from the minor product or packaging changes in the introduction
of new products within the market (Todor 2014).
4. Literature Review and Literature Matrix
4.1. The concept of Corporate Branding and Brand Innovation
Zenker and Jacobsen (2015) indicated that corporate branding refers to the practice of
promoting a brand name of a business in opposition to particular services or products. The
activities along with perspectives that are considered within the corporate branding are distinct
from services and product branding as the scope of corporate branding is typically broader. Wirtz
and Lovelock (2016) defined a brand as a design, name, symbol, term, logo or symbol along with

4EFFECTIVENESS OF BRITISH AIRWAYS CURRENT BRANDING STRATEGY
the combination of them intended to recognise the services or goods of one seller or group of
sellers along with differentiating them from the business rivals. Considering the same, branding
can be explained as the process of endowing products and services with the qualities offered by a
brand. These researchers also revealed that in developing effective corporate branding strategies
the company would rely on brand planning that involves several branding models. Leekha
Chhabra and Sharma (2014) indicated that the corporate branding model those are generally
employed by the companies includes brand positioning model, competitive reference framework,
creating the point of differences, generating the point of parity, brand identity and brand
resonance model. These researchers also revealed that marketers are involved in creating the
brand and promoting brands because they realise the branding significance within their business.
Ponnam and Balaji (2015) evaluated that the reason for corporate branding is to improve
the product image which can be recalled by the consumers. These researchers also defined brand
innovation as promoting a brand name of a business in opposition to particular services or
products through implementing innovative or new market promotion approaches. The activities
along with perspectives that are considered within the innovative branding are distinct from
services and product branding as the scope of corporate branding is typically broader. Thus, with
the help of branding strategy, it is possible to develop value for the stakeholders through rising
sales, return on investment and profitability. When a strong brand succeeds to achieve loyalty,
the customers are involved in repeat purchases along with recommending their acquaintances to
purchase from the specific organisation. Finally, a strong brand could charge higher prices from
its loyal customers by using the premium pricing strategy.

5EFFECTIVENESS OF BRITISH AIRWAYS CURRENT BRANDING STRATEGY
4.2. Current Branding Strategies of British Airways
British Airways uses a number of branding strategies for conducting its business
operations and they are enumerated briefly as follows:
Radical branding strategy:
The airline follows a radical branding strategy, which constitutes of internal and external
customers assisted in restoring the brand fortune. Recently, it has revitalised the association of
the organisation with its customers. The strategy emphasises on inclusive marketing for
highlighting the commitment with the significant philosophy, which is "To Fly To Serve".
Integrated branding strategy:
The airline places its facilities back at the core of the business. This is conducted by
concentrating on the integrated branding strategy that includes print, television commercials and
social media. However, a film has been made to ensure success in internal as well as external
backing for the core philosophy of British Airways (Choi et al. 2014).
Event branding strategy:
British Airways provides a number of offers like in the festival of Christmas. The airline
launches this particular campaign, which is popularly known as British Airways escape ticket.
The ticket prices have been minimised largely and the customers used to travel in silver and gold
classes obtain free updates. On the other hand, there has been a single way of flight.
Advertisement:
In order to capture the emotional insights of the customers, British Airways rely on
television commercials that play a pivotal role in representing the products for all customer

6EFFECTIVENESS OF BRITISH AIRWAYS CURRENT BRANDING STRATEGY
groups effectively (Lilleker 2015). As a result, it helps in drawing a maximum number of
customers in availing its services.
Direct marketing:
British Airways follows direct marketing strategy as well, in which the purchasers might
sign up for direct marketing either by being a member of the executive club or by signing up on
its online site. The cell phone users have an additional benefit of obtaining instant information
regarding special offerings through text messages. In addition, the airline ensures that its
customers never receive duplicate calls or messages (Fill and Turnbull 2016). This has helped
the airline in providing high-quality services to its customers along with retaining loyal customer
bases.
4.3. Innovative Branding Strategies in Attaining Consumer Satisfaction and Competitive
Advantages
Some of the innovative branding strategies that assist in meeting consumer satisfaction as
well as competitive advantages include the following:
Website personalisation:
Airlines like British Airways could utilise tools such as Adobe Experience Cloud or Optimised
Personalisation, which could provide customers and prospects with tailored experiences through
smart content. The other tools include FullContact or Clearbit so that website data could be
personalised for anonymous visitors. With the help of these tools, the IP visitor address could be
identified along with showing if an organisation is associated with it. Thus, the visitors could be
converted into customers more efficiently. Moreover, it provides the existing customers with
sound experiences resulting in long-term loyalty (Shaw 2016).

7EFFECTIVENESS OF BRITISH AIRWAYS CURRENT BRANDING STRATEGY
Data warehousing and visualisation:
The organisations could recruit data experts for extraction of data from their marketing
tools, model the same and then they need to be imported into a visualisation platform like
Tableau or Looker. This helps in identifying the best leads and potential customers for the
business organisations (Chernev 2018).
Custom audience advertisements:
With the help of custom audience advertisements, the sales teams could be assisted in
outbound prospecting. This takes place at the time the potential customers are reached by the
organisations rather than waiting for them (Baker and Saren 2016). For this, a list of emails is
required to be uploaded in order to begin re-targeting contacts.
Voice search optimisation:
Voice search is deemed to be more competitive compared to text search since a smart
assistant would generally choose an answer from the consideration of the initial listing. The
marketers need to concentrate on formulating content, which provides short explanations for
those identifying with a smart assistant and in-depth solutions for those preferring the text
(Kotler et al. 2014).
Demand generation:
With the help of demand generation marketing, the teams could be placed on the identical
page by gauging the marketing efforts in terms of revenue, sales pipeline and customer lifetime
value. At the time the marketers start analysing the efforts depending on potential revenue or

8EFFECTIVENESS OF BRITISH AIRWAYS CURRENT BRANDING STRATEGY
revenue, they form a better alignment with the requirement of salespeople (Miquel-Romero,
Caplliure-Giner and Adame-Sánchez 2014).
4.4. Literature Matrix
The literature matrix is prepared in the summary table below in order to attain ideas on
major themes or ideas from the literature review. These recognise themes are considered to
develop the research topic that is written by the authors in completing the literature review.
Author Date Type of
Publication
Identified Theme
from Literature
Identified Theme from
Literature
YouGov 2017 article Analysis of UK
consumer perception of
airlines
Innovative Branding
Strategies in Attaining
Consumer Satisfaction
YouGov 2018 article Corporate branding
strategies of British
Airline
Current Branding
Strategies of British
Airlines in attaining
competitive advantages
The themes identified facilitated in developing a research subject regarding the
effectiveness of branding strategies of British Airlines in maintaining better consumer service
along with competitive advantages. Moreover, from analysing the above themes in the table, it
has also been deduced that for British Airlines there is an increased need to focus their branding
and marketing efforts on maintaining consumer loyalty. It is also identified that consumer

9EFFECTIVENESS OF BRITISH AIRWAYS CURRENT BRANDING STRATEGY
perception has declined current following increased strikes, IT meltdown along with the
introduction of drinks and food charges by British Airways on the short-haul flights. Most of the
organisations do not acknowledge effective strategies of brand innovation because of which they
fail to attain increased market share. The articles of YouGov analysed the manner in which
British Airways is faring in relation to its competitors and the ways in which distinct metrics on
brand perception has changed. Moreover, the literature themes also explained to the consumers
that can be tempted to shift their preference to a low cost airline.
5. Research Methodology
5.1. Design
In carrying out research on analysing the effectiveness of British Airways current
branding strategy in attaining better consumer service and competitive advantages, both primary
and secondary data will be employed. In addition, quantitative as well as qualitative data will be
gathered in accomplishing the research. The secondary data will be attained from the books; peer
reviewed journals and websites in order to understand the speculative conditions as well as
historic presentation. Such data will be collected, as it will facilitate to evaluate the recent trend
of recognised research issue. The primary data will be gathered from the passengers and
marketing managers of British Airways that will facilitate in attaining authentic consumer
responses. The quantitative data will be gathered from the survey findings in order to attain
significant research results. Quantitative data will be gathered as it is considered to be significant
in analysing current trends of the research issue identified through numerical information
(Kumar 2019).

10EFFECTIVENESS OF BRITISH AIRWAYS CURRENT BRANDING STRATEGY
5.2. Construction
In collecting the secondary data relevant to the research on British Airways current
branding strategy in attaining better consumer service and competitive advantages, relevant and
authentic information will be collected from academic textbooks such as “Is British Airways
Losing Attitude?” and “Which brands are flying high?”, Journals on branding strategies, industry
reports on airlines company, company websites along with blogs on branding strategies of airline
companies. Such data is considered important to be gathered in this research as it can facilitate in
analysing the global competition for the airline company has become fiercer and in response to
such competition in attaining competitive advantages, the organisations implement several brand
development strategies (Ledford and Gast 2018). Moreover, primary data will be gathered from
the passengers of British Airlines along with the Marketing managers of the company as they can
facilitate in gathering constructive survey results on the company’s brand image, brand equity
and brand based innovation based on which the passengers are attracted to the services offered
by the company (Mackey and Gass 2015).
5.3. Sample
Sampling serves as a process in which the target respondents of the research are chosen
from a large population. Simple random sampling method will be followed in the current
research in carrying out the survey with respondents. This is for the reason that it offers equal
opportunities for all the respondents to get selected in the survey process (Flick 2015). This is the
reason for which quantitative data has been gathered through using this sampling technique. It is
analysed that quantitative data analysis requires a relatively large sample size in attaining and
evaluating respondents’ responses. Considering the same, 30 passengers of British Airlines and
two marketing managers will be selected in gathering their informative responses on the

11EFFECTIVENESS OF BRITISH AIRWAYS CURRENT BRANDING STRATEGY
branding strategies innovativeness of British Airlines in attaining consumer satisfaction and
competitive advantages.
The sources that were selected for developing the literature review on the topic British
Airways current branding strategy in attaining better consumer service and competitive
advantages, evaluation criteria of ACROS will be implemented.
 Authority: The type of literature that will be employed in this research will be on the
concept of branding strategies and previous competitive advantages attained through
effective branding strategies.
 Currency: The information gathered from the literature will be up-to-date within the
years from 2010 to 2019 and the publication will be of authentic and renowned
publishers.
 Relevance: The literature that will be analysed is related to the subject of research that is
branding strategies effectiveness in attaining consumer satisfaction.
 Objective: The literature that will be analysed is considered to be balanced as it offered
evidence-based and in-depth analysis of the research subject.
 Supporting Evidence: Evidence of the British Airways each branding strategy will be
analysed in supporting the accuracy of stated arguments of different authors in the
literature review.
5.4. Procedure
The findings gathered from the research will be organised and summarised within the
literature review matrix. This will be conducted for the reason that it can facilitate in identifying
the differences and similarities between literature and the research subject.

12EFFECTIVENESS OF BRITISH AIRWAYS CURRENT BRANDING STRATEGY
5.5. Data Analysis
Data analysis will be carried out in summarising, interpreting and inspecting in revealing
useful information for gathering useful information in order to suggest suitable conclusion along
with making recommendations in supporting decision making (Quinlan et al. 2019). The data
gathered will be analysed through employing an authentic statistical tool such as SPSS that is
considered to be the most effective analytical technique in collecting significant research results.
Data will be analysed through carrying out correlation and regression analysis in analysing the
relationship between research variables such as branding strategies, consumer satisfaction and
competitive advantages. The analysed data will be represented through tables and graphs that can
be employed to convert consumer opinion into percentage in estimating respondent insight
trends.

13EFFECTIVENESS OF BRITISH AIRWAYS CURRENT BRANDING STRATEGY
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