British Airways Marketing Environment and Communication Tools Analysis

This portfolio provides a comprehensive analysis of British Airways' marketing strategies and communication tools. It begins with an executive summary and an introduction that outlines the report's objectives. The report then delves into the overview of the organization, detailing British Airways' position as a flag carrier of the UK and its financial performance. A key component of the analysis involves a detailed examination of the marketing environment, including both micro and macro environmental factors. The micro-environment analysis utilizes a SWOT framework to assess the company's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The macro-environment is analyzed using PESTLE factors, which covers political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental influences. The core of the report focuses on the analysis of British Airways' marketing communication tools, specifically advertising and word-of-mouth marketing, evaluating their strengths and weaknesses. The report concludes with preliminary ideas for future marketing communication strategies. The report is well-structured, providing insights into BA's marketing communication tools and strategies.

PORTFOLIO

Executive summary
The present report has studied the marketing and different tools which are used by British
Airways which it uses to communicate with the consumers. Marketing is basically refers to the
management of exchanging the relationship along with marketing environment which is a
collection of internal and external factors that affect the ability of organization for establishing
the relation and serving for its customers. The marketing communication tools are some of the
different types of mediums or sources through which the company conveys the information to
the ultimate consumers.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................4
Overview of organization............................................................................................................4
Marketing environment...............................................................................................................4
Analysis of marketing communication tools...............................................................................6
Preliminary draft for a future marketing communication strategy..............................................9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................13
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................14

INTRODUCTION
Marketing is basically refers to the management of exchanging the relationship. It is a
type of business process where it creates the relation with or satisfied the customers. Marketing
environment is a collection of internal and external factors that affect the ability of organization
for establishing the relation and serving for its customers. British airways is a airline company of
flag carrier of UK and headquarter of the British airways is in waterside, Harmondsworth. It is 2
largest airline in UK which is based on the size of fleet & carried passengers behind the easy
jet(Kotler and et.al., 2017). This report will study the overview of the organization and also the
macro and micro environment analysis. Furthermore, this report will study the analysis of
marketing communication tools and preliminary draft for the future marketing communication
strategy.
Overview of organization
British Airways is basically a flag carrier of UK. The headquarter is at Waterside,
Harmondsworth and it is second largest airline in UK. It was created in 1974 when the British
Airways board has been established by the government of British that manage the 2 nationalized
airline corporations. The revenue of the British Airways is 11,443 million and net income is
1,473 million. It is also listed in the London stock exchange market(Shaw, 2016).
Marketing environment.
Marketing environment is the collection and attribution of the internal and external forces
that has been affected the ability of the organization for establishing the relationship and served
it to its customers.
Micro environment analysis
It is a strategic analytical tool which facilitates the analysis of the strength, weakness,
opportunities and threats that is related to the business.
Strength- It is one of the leading firm in the airline industry where there are so many
numerous strength of the strength which helps to thrive the place of market. The strength of the
British airways is it has good returns of the capital expenditure which is relatively gives success
at the execution of the new generated goods and the main strength of the British airways it has
large size scale due to the economies(Wang and Zhang, 2018).

Another strength of the British airways is it has strong image of brand. It has strong
leadership in the market of UK. The main and significant strength of the British airways is it has
high level of the services of digitalization and also the effective integration of the internet and
internet technology.
Weakness- Weakness is the area of the British Airways which brings the improvement
for them. British airways has so many weaknesses such as they need mire investment for the new
and advance technologies that gives the various geographic to the planing of the firm and also
the scale of expansion to the company. It has minor success outside the core business from that
it faces so many challenges for moving the segments of the products with the present culture of
the British airways(Bull and et.al., 2016).
Opportunity- There are so many opportunities in the form of the British airways such as
it has new emerging economies for improving the tourism demand and infrastructure that has
been offered by the airlines which is a excellent way of expanding the business. The open up of
the new market because of the agreement of the government is also ways of adopting the new
technologies and enter into new emerging market.
Threat- There are so many threats which has been faced by the British airways such as
the regulations of the new environment is the biggest threat for the BA. Day by day growth of
the local distribution is also a threat. It has intense competitors in the market which has affected
the sales and profitability of the British Airways.
Macro environment analysis
PESTLE analysis the study of the external factors of the airline business.
Political factor- It needs so many regulations because there are so many subjective high
regulations for the airline industry. The stability of the political factor has the perception of
safety by the population which is an significant factor for the tremendous effect British airways.
There are wide range of political factor that affect the British airways that involves the level of
authorities, stage of corruption, activities of the home market lobbying, trade unions activities
etc(Mhlanga and Steyn, 2017).
Economic factor- There are certain level of economic factors which involves the
exchange rates, inflation rates, climate of the economic in the UK. There are different economic
factors which has indirect impact on the British airways. The planned of third party which results

is shifting the airline airport operations offices, raise the cots. The impact of economic factor is it
has low prices of the fuel which raise the profitability of the British airways for short period. The
increases of price of oil and services and there are so many extraordinary crisis of finance that
has been faced by the UK.
Social factor- There are so many factors which has been affected the British Airways
such as the perception which has increases as the low-cost carrier. All the people think that while
they are travelling the trip was safe and smoothly goes. From largely increase and changes in the
preferences and taste of the audience directly affects the sales and revenue of the British airways
and also there are so many sociology of the population and class of distributions(Zahari and
Romli, 2018).
Technological factor- There are so many recent technologies which has influence the
British Airways for developing and breakthroughs that has been made by the competitors. Its not
easy for the British airways to adopt the advance technology because it takes huge cost and
training to give proper knowledge to the employees.
Legal factor- There are so many legal factors which has been affect the business in so
many ways while the changes in the law and intellectual properties because there are so many
laws which is made for the safety of the airline industry such as data protection law which
protect the data, discrimination law which placed by the government for protecting the
employees.
Environmental factor- There are lots of changes in the environment because the current
condition of the weather also affect the ability of the British airways, changes in climate also
render the useless products. The affect of the mandate products for the buying of the carbon
pollution for operative the EU region(Rastogi and Trivedi, 2016).
Analysis of marketing communication tools
The marketing communication is a method adopted by British Airways in order to
convey all the information and data relating to products and services are either directly or
indirectly passed on to the consumers in order to influence them so that they can be attracted
towards purchasing them (Leung, Xue and Bai, 2015). The marketing communication tools are
some of the different types of mediums or sources through which the company conveys the
information to the ultimate consumers highlighting all the details and information relating to

product or services. British Airways uses these communication tools in order to create a brand
awareness among the prospective and target consumers (Yadav, Kumar Dokania and Swaroop
Pathak, 2016). The company uses the following different types of communication tools in order
to create awareness and image of company's product and services-
Advertising- this is the most common type of tool for communicating with the consumers
relating to products and services provided by the company. Under this method, the company uses
different marketing methods like use of newspaper advertising, magazines, advertising with help
of radio, television billboards and many other different types of advertising. The basic principle
behind advertising is AIDA that is Attention, Interest, Desire and Action. The main aim of
advertising is to first grab the attention of consumer and develop the interest of consumer so that
they desire to buy the product or services and then accordingly take action to fulfil the desire.
The major strengths and weaknesses of using advertising as a communication tool are as follows-
Strengths
 The first and foremost advantage of advertising is that it has a wider reach of consumers
that is this method covers a great number of consumers at one time. Like for example,
newspaper is read by almost all people, also television is watched by many so it covers a
large market base.
 Another major advantage of advertising is that this form of marketing communication
tool is a very good source of information because advertising outlines all the information
and details relating to the product or service. The next advantage of advertising is that it helps in targeting the consumers more
effectively and efficiently. This is because of the reason that in advertising the
advertisement can be made keeping in mind the prospective or potential or target
consumers.
Weaknesses
 The major disadvantage is that since the competition is very tough and hard so it is not a
relevant source of communication tools (Kandampully, Zhang and Bilgihan, 2015). So
some times it is very difficult for company to advertise its product through way of print
media as some times it may not be much appealing and attractive to the consumers.

 Another disadvantage is that it is a very costly tools of marketing communication since it
involves many options of advertising so for this the company has to pay much amount. Another disadvantage is that choosing one mode of advertising is very much confusing
since there are so many options like television, radio, newspaper and many more. So
selecting one out of all is very difficult and confusing (Martin, Rosenbaum and Ham,
2015).
Word of mouth marketing- it is a type of marketing wherein the people or consumers of
product market the product or service from there mouth or by saying directly to consumers. This
type of advertising where the customers share and exchanges information and details relating to
the product or service with one another. They do so because they are satisfied with the
consumption of the product or services, and they wish to recommend it to their known and other
people and this way the goods and services are promoted.
Strengths
 This is a very cheap source of communicating the information of products and services.
This is because of the reason that there is no money needed or required for saying
anything relating to the product or service. With this method of advertising the
information passes on very quickly and in time. This method of marketing communication tool is also advantageous because this method
is only applicable when someone will say positive things about the product and this is
only possible if the product or service is consumed. Then only that person will be in state
of recommending the products to others so this creates and increases the goodwill and
brand image of the company.
Weaknesses
 This is also disadvantageous because of the reason that it covers only a limited range of
consumers and not much large market segment (Kandampully, Zhang and Jaakkola,
2018). This is because of the reason that people will only recommend to those people
whom they know.

 Another major disadvantage is that it can also have a negative impact because if a after
consuming the product or service is not satisfied then after that it will not promote the
product rather it will defame it.
Social media marketing- it is another type of marketing communication tool used by
British Airways in order to promote its products and services within the market. This is a new
way of marketing the goods and services with help of internet and social media networking sites
and applications. Since this is a modern age and every person is busy in their cell phones and
surfing the social media sites and internet so this is the best way of advertising the products and
services. With the increased use of sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Myspace and many
such related sites it is very easy to use social media marketing to promote the products and
services into the market.
Strengths
 Since the use of social media sites is very increasing and popularizing in these days so
this tool of communication is very helpful in reaching or covering a large market share
and large audience (Hanks, Line and Mattila, 2016). Another advantage of social media marketing is that it is very cost effective because it is
entirely free to start because all the social media platform are free and does not have sign
up fees and also does not require much investment.
Weaknesses
 This tool of marketing communication can also have a negative impact because of the
reason that some time there may be possibility that there can also be some negative
feedbacks relating to the product or service on internet.
 For good social media marketing it is very risky because it deals with technology so it
may be possible that it can be misused by the competitors.
Preliminary draft for a future marketing communication strategy
A marketing communication plan is a type of plan of action or a blue print that what
work will be done after what in developing a communication plan. The marketing
communication plan is a plan which helps in studying the prevailing market condition and to
identify and select appropriate marketing communication mix so that it can identify its target

audience and to transfer the right message to the right target through correct media selection. The
marketing communication plan for British Airways is discussed in the following points-
Goals and objectives
The goals and objectives are referred to as the end result which the company wants to
achieve to become successful and to grow in the future (Oskam, Dekker and Wiegerink, eds.,
2017). All the work within the business are done in order to achieve the goals of business. For
achieving goals the business sets some small objectives which leads in the fulfilment of the main
goal.
“To achieve the world's 1 St position in marketing through help of the latest communication
tools by 2022.”
“To adapt to the latest techniques of communication by 2021”.
“To increase the public image and goodwill by 20 % till 2022.”
Identify and profile audience
The next step in marketing communication plan is to identify and target a particular
group of target audience. This is important because of the reason that if the company does not
know that for whom or for which type of consumer does it market or wishes to market for the
company. Here for British Airways the main target customers or target audience is millennials
and the business class people. These are the main target because the millennials are the young
mass of the society and the business class because they frequently travel to other countries in
order to do their business. So it is very necessary to identify the target audience because the type
of marketing communication channel depends upon the audience only.
Develop message and identify messenger
Developing the message is the next step in marketing communication plan. Under this
step a message which is to be conveyed is developed and selected and is used in advertising for
the company British Airways. After making the message it is very necessary to check that who
and how will it be communicated with the audience r target consumers (Schuckert, Liu and Law,
2015).
Messages and credible messenger

This is the stage wherein the company finalizes the message in accordance with the work
and operation of the business. This is because of the reason that the message must be such which
outlines the whole work within which the company deals in. The message of British Airways is
'To fly, To serve'. Further it needs to find a credible messenger who will deliver this message to
the whole market and the target consumers (Seric, Saura and Mikulic, 2016). This is because of
the reason that if the person delivering the message is nice and influential then the consumers
will be attracted towards the company. Golfer Justin Rose is the brand ambassador of British
Airways.
Develop strategies
After deciding the message and finalizing that who will promote this the next step will be
to develop some strategies through which the company can devise some strategies to
communicate the message with the target audience. Some of the strategies used by British
Airways is as follows-
Consumer buying behaviour- this is the most important strategy because this is the
crucial step in developing the customer base and to decide which communication channel is to be
used for communicating and promoting the product and services with consumers. This is
important because if the company does not know what its consumers requires then how it will
cater to their needs.
Profile strategy- this is yet another strategy used by British Airways because this is a
strategy which helps the company in distinguishing itself from the competitors. This is very
necessary because of the reason that the competition is very tough so to face it the company
needs to be distinctive from its competitors.
Select communication channels
The communication channels are the ways or medium through which the message is
transferred from one person to another in order to provide the consumers with all the information
relating to the product or services within which the company deals in. the different
communication channels which British Airways can use to communicate with consumers are as
follows-

Posters- this is a new method of communicating with the consumers within which the
company can make posters or hoardings and can place them at public places, in super markets
malls and other public places (Altinay, Paraskevas and Jang, 2015). This is done because posters
are an attractive source of advertising and communicating with the consumers.
Providing discount- this is yet another method which can be used by British Airways to
communicate and attract the consumers to travel in the British Airways. By seeing discounts and
cashback the consumers will be much attracted towards the company.
Internet- this is also a type of channel of communicating with the consumers. Here the
company can make its official website where the consumers can convey any message or any
problem on the official site of the company so that their problem is solved in no time that is
urgently. Also it must have a grievance handling option on the site of the company.
Implement the plan
This is the step wherein the plan is implemented in actual. All the above suggested
strategies and different options of communication channels through which the company can
communicate all the information with the consumers. In this step all the above thought practices
are put into reality.
Evaluation points
This is a step within which the company tries to evaluate its performance through some
different methods and techniques. Some of the techniques which can be used by British Airways
is discussed in following points-
Bench Marking- it is a method used to evaluate the performance of the company by
comparing it with the performance of the competitors (Law, Chan and Wang, 2018). This
comparison will help the company in order to know the strengths and weaknesses of the
company in comparison with the competitors so that it can develop strategies to overcome the
weaknesses of British Airways.
Key Performance Indicator- The method of evaluating the performance used by British
Airways is applicable for evaluating every material aspect of operation of business. This includes
employees, growth, success, etc. The high level of Key performance indicator focuses on
measuring and evaluation of performance of overall growth and success of an organization. This