Detailed Marketing Report: British Airways' Strategies and Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive marketing analysis of British Airways. It begins with an introduction highlighting the importance of marketing in the airline industry and then delves into the current situation of British Airways, emphasizing its brand recognition and international presence. The core of the report explores British Airways' marketing strategy, including segmentation (demographic and psychographic), targeting (loyalty programs and customer segments), and positioning (leadership and service class). The marketing mix is thoroughly examined, covering product (air transport and associated services), price (pricing strategy and discounts), promotion (social and digital media), place (website, third-party agents, and social media links), people (employee management), physical evidence (aircraft design and customer experience), and process (booking and travel procedures). The conclusion summarizes the significance of marketing for British Airways, especially in a competitive environment, and underscores the marketing mix's role in driving growth and profitability. The report references various academic sources to support its findings.

Principle of
Marketing

Executive Summary
This report discussed about marketing of the British Airways. Marketing is an important
element and factor for the success of business organisations. Earlier it was not an element and
practice which was given prime attention in the Airline industry but increasing competition has
make it necessary that airlines have marketing plans and strategy so that they can stand strong in
competition and along with sustaining in the market they can also grow. For this purpose
marketing strategy in form of segmentation, targeting and positioning was discussed and also
marketing mix which British Airways can employ was discussed in the report.

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................4
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................4
Current Situation of British Airways (300).................................................................................4
Marketing strategy (300).............................................................................................................4
Marketing Mix (500)...................................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Marketing is one of the important terms being used by the business organisations. This
has become important for business organisation to employ proper marketing if they want to
succeed in terms of productivity and profitability. This report will discuss marketing and
marketing plan for British Airways, flag carrier airline of the UK. The airline was founded in
1974 and is headquartered at London, England (Airways, 2017). This is the second largest airline
of the UK based on its fleet size and passengers carried. This study will discuss its current
situation and later will develop marketing strategy based on segmentation, targeting and
positioning. Marketing mix will also be developed to improve growth and market share of the
company.
MAIN BODY
Current Situation of British Airways (300)
With a vision to become world’s leading premium airline company British airways
employs an effective marketing plan and this is why has managed to become a brand and second
biggest airline of UK. Marketing of the British Airways has been planned in such ways that it
can cater large number of customers which has been targeted by the airline. Its pricing policy is
that it can provide service to every class of customers from medium to high class customers
according to their choice of service and at the same time in the price range they are able to pay
(Gupta, Gupta and Gupta, 2019). It is a international airline and this is why it also attracts people
as it serves to large number of locations worldwide and along with that it also manage and has
influencing integrations which enables it to cater more customers than it can. Its services are
available at most of the biggest international airports. Fleet size of the airline is also big so
services provided by the company are also huge. British Airways and its services are not limited
to passengers travel only they also provide cargo service and this also contributes in increasing
customers and profitability of the British Airways. British Airways also focused on making it as
a brand and this involves effective marketing and quality of the products and service of the
company.

Marketing strategy (300)
Marketing strategy involves segmentation, Targeting and positioning of the company.
Segmentation
British Airline uses a mix of demographic and psychographic segmentation and this helps
British Airways to attract customers from various demographics and psychographic segments.
Demographic factor refers to factor which includes that customers are segmented on the basis of
age, gender, culture, education etc (Hanlon, 2017). and in psychographic segmentation customers
are segmented on the basis of personal interest, hobbies, choice and lifestyle etc. British Airways
in future can also stick to this segmentation as this allows attracting more customers regardless
of their preference factors.
Targeting
Targeting of the company is based on different attractive characteristics of the different
customers segments. This enables company to identify and attractiveness of the company.
Different customer segments are used different schemes to attract them. Loyalty program are
applied by the company to attract and retain existing customers and this is how other strategies
are used to attract different customers from different segments. This can also be used by
company in future.
Positioning
Positioning of the company means at what place company positions itself in the minds of
the customers. British airways position itself based on leadership position in strategic markets
alliance and diverse customer group (Seo and Park, 2018). The airline also position itself based
on the class to which it serves and its services. In future company can do so for the purpose of
growth and increasing profit. Leadership positioning of the company can also be used by
company to promote itself as this can be strong factor to affect and influence mindset of the
customers. Leadership positioning of the company will attract more high class customers and
will also attract middle class based on the price positioning of the company.
Marketing Mix (500)
Product

Product of British Airways is its services which it provides in form of air transport to its
customers and passengers. This is the main product of British Airways but there are various other
factors associated with it which make it worth for travellers (Wu, Cheng and Ai, 2018). These
are services provided along with travel and what experience British Airways provide to the
travellers. For its growth in coming years British Airways should focus on taste and preference in
millennial travellers as they are increasing and their taste is that they are provided quality service
rather than less price. This is why British Airways should consider their priorities and design its
services accordingly.
Price
This is most important factor which affect success of the company and its products, price of
British Airline is currently according to what service they are providing to the customers. Price is
based on the type of service or which is also known as class of service in airline its services are
divided in economy, premium and business class and this is why customers grom every class and
financial status can afford the price of British Airways. But for the purpose of its future growth
company can adopt the sales promotion which includes providing various types of discounts.
This is because airlines with less than normal fair manage to attract more customers than those
charging higher price. Discounts offered by company seems like prices have been reduced and
this manage to attract customers (Jackson and Ahuja, 2016). Discounts are a tried method of
promotion and British Airways can include this into its pricing strategy.
Promotion
Most suitable promotion strategy for marketing in 2020-2023 is social media and digital media.
The social media has become prime place of attraction for many reasons and increasing users of
social media suggest that in near future this will bring and contribute to more success of the
airline. Airline currently is using social media marketing but there are several ways in which it
can improve its promotions. These are promoting through influential marketing on social media
platforms. This means that airline can share real life experience of celebrities on social media
profiles of the celebrities. This works like celebrities are sharing their real experience with their
followers of using the services of British Airways.
Place

Place of the company currently is its website and other than this customers can also avail its
services through third parties which are travel agents and different websites and applications
which are involved in travel and tourism services to the customers (Dileep and Mathew, 2017).
These are the places that British Airways can use in future as well. Along with this company can
also establish its technology that customers can get direct link from its social media accounts.
People
British Airways employ people and employees which are best in the industry and has contributed
significantly in its success. Regarding people British Airways do not need to do anything but
ensuring that its current employees remain with the company and at the same time it has required
staff and there is no shortage of employees which result in increasing work pressure on other
employees.
Physical Evidence
Physical evidence of the company is what it provides as experience to its customers. This is
intangible aspects of the British Airways as it provides service rather than products which can
come along with its physical evidence (Abdelhady, Fayed and Fawzy, 2019). The physical
evidence of the company includes its designs and the way aircrafts of British Airways has been
designed.
Process
Process of the British Airways is like what is the process of airline industry. This starts with
booking tickets, later getting boarding pass and finally experiencing journey and this ends up
when people get their luggage back. The process has been simplified with help of technology as
customers can easily book their tickets, and later getting boarding pass and finally getting
luggage back.
CONCLUSION
On the basis of this it can be concluded that marketing is very important for
organisational success and this has become equally important for organisations like British
Airways because of increasing competition in the airline industry. They are facing strong

competition from various competitors like low price competitors, high quality competitors.
Marketing strategy of British Airways included its marketing on the basis of segmentation,
targeting and positioning. Later marketing mix of the British Airways was discussed in the study
and this included what type of marketing mix British Airways can adopt in order to grow and
increase its profitability. This plan was made keeping in mind a duration of 2020 to 2023.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Abdelhady, M.R.R., Fayed, H.A.K. and Fawzy, N.M., 2019. The Influence of Airlines'
Marketing Mix Elements on Passengers' Purchasing Decision-Making: The Case of
FSCs and LCCs. International Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Systems. 12(2).
Dileep, M.R. and Mathew, V., 2017. Marketing of Tourism Industry: Enhancing Services
through Marketing Mix Elements. In Strategic Marketing Management and Tactics in
the Service Industry (pp. 304-329). IGI Global.
Gupta, A., Gupta, N. and Gupta, M., 2019. British Airways-A SWOT and PESTLE Analysis-The
impact of Europe 2020 policy. NOLEGEIN-Journal of Corporate & Business Laws,
pp.1-11.
Hanlon, A., 2017. British Airways: a case study in social media management. The Business &
Management Collection.
Jackson, G. and Ahuja, V., 2016. Dawn of the digital age and the evolution of the marketing
mix. Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice. 17(3). pp.170-186.
Seo, E.J. and Park, J.W., 2018. A study on the effects of social media marketing activities on
brand equity and customer response in the airline industry. Journal of Air Transport
Management. 66. pp.36-41.
Wu, H.C., Cheng, C.C. and Ai, C.H., 2018. An empirical analysis of green switching intentions
in the airline industry. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management. 61(8).
pp.1438-1468.
Online
Airways, B., 2017. British Airways. Where we fly.[online] Available at: <https://www.
britishairways. com/travel/where-we-fly/public/en_gb/map>. [Accessed 13 November
2017].