Marketing Analysis: Key Concepts and Strategies for British Airways

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of British Airways' marketing strategies, encompassing key marketing concepts and terminology applicable to the airline. It delves into branding, product strategy, and promotional strategies, offering insights into how British Airways positions itself in the market. The report examines the STP (Segmentation, Targeting, Positioning) approach and the marketing mix elements, including product, place, price, promotion, people, process, and physical evidence. Furthermore, it addresses ethical considerations relevant to British Airways' operations, such as codes of practice and environmental impact. The report concludes with recommendations aimed at improving marketing functions and achieving the company's objectives, supported by relevant academic references.

MARKETING
PRINCIPLES AND
PRACTICE

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY ..................................................................................................................................1
Key marketing concepts and terminology applicable to British Airways..............................1
Marketing strategies which is helpful for British Airways to achieve their objectives..........3
Ethical considerations.............................................................................................................5
RELATIONSHIP OF MARKETING FUNCTIONS......................................................................6
Covered in POSTER...............................................................................................................6
RECOMMENDATIONS.................................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES ...............................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Marketing defines those activities which is performed by the companies in order to
promote their services. It includes promoting, selling and delivering of products to respective
consumer. It is a kind of business process which helps in developing the healthy relationship
with consumers and also satisfies them. Moreover, it is used in order to attract the customers
which is the primary element of business functions. An appropriate marketing strategy makes the
difference between the selling and buying of products. In other words, it is useful in placing the
right product at right place. Marketing is the sum total of activities which are involved in
transferring of goods from one place to another (Alserhan, 2017). This report is based on British
Airways which is the airline company in UK and headquarter in Waterside near its main hub at
London Heathrow Airport. Company was founded in 1974 by the British government in order to
manage their airline corporations which is British Overseas Airways Corporation and British
European Airways. This report is going to cover the various marketing concepts and marketing
strategies which is used in order to achieve the objectives. Moreover, also explain the principles
which is used in the organisational operations and identify the relationship of marketing
functions to other functional areas. Lastly, it provide recommendations in order to improve the
functions of marketing.
MAIN BODY
Key marketing concepts and terminology applicable to British Airways
Marketing concept is a strategy which is used in order to satisfy the needs and
requirements of customers and increases the sales of the company. Marketing is the department
of company which design the strategies and also develop profitable relationships with targeted
consumers. The concept of marketing proposes the satisfaction of the objectives of organisation
which fulfils the wants and requirements of consumers and also satisfy them efficiently instead
of their competitors. Key concepts of marketing are discussed as under:
Branding: It is a marketing practice which is used by companies in order to create its
name, symbol and design which can be easily identifiable for other people (Rowley, 2017). It is
helpful for British Airways in order to recognise the product and make difference from other
products and services. It is way which distinguish its products to others or from its competitors.
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Branding is important because it can drive new business and improves the brand awareness. It is
essential for British Airways in following ways: Increases value of business: It is important of British Airways as it helps in generating
future business and develop strong value for business by proving more leverage. It also
develop opportunity of business in order to set up a new marketplace (Bacon, 2017).
Moreover, it create trust among people by making appropriate strategies which put
excellent impression of company on the mind of their respective customers.
 Develop new customers: A company who have excellent image in market does not face
lot of trouble in order to develop new customer base. Strong branding means that the
company put positive impact on their consumers. For this, British Airways has excellent
reputation at the marketplace and all of this is because of their consumers who are more
familiar and dependable on the company and also trust its name (Flora, Schooler and
Pierson, 2018). Moreover, word of mouth is also effective for the well established and
recognised brand.
Product Strategy: It is used for the road map of product as it provide a big picture of
product in terms of sales and in future what product will become. For this, British Airways use
various strategies and also do planning in order to identify the specific direction for the activities
of company. Strategies for product is made up of specific process which include the vision and
strategies which can be effectively achieved. British Airways need to be clear about its target
market in order to make plans and strategies which helps in achieving the goals and objectives.
Product is the most significant element of the company as without it the other components of
marketing remains incomplete and business does not carry its functions. Product is the
component which is offered by the company in order to satisfy the needs and requirements of the
respective consumers (Gilligan and Lowe, 2018). It is the important factor of marketing mix and
describe the exchange of products, services or an idea. In terms of British Airways, it offer
various kinds of products and services, flights across the destination and many more. Services
which is offered by company are intangible as product product carry a performance or effort
which is stored and in this consumers can easily take participate as it is termed as production
process.
Promotional Strategy: It is also the part of marketing in which the marketer need to
advertise or market its products in terms of attracting more and more customers as it is termed as
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promotional strategy. It is an attempt which is done by marketer in order to inform, persuade
and influence their consumers in order to increase their sales and profitability. Promotion is
important for the company as it include various methods in order to market and advertise the
products (Pererva, Nagy and Maslak, 2018). By considering British Airways, it provide various
offers at the time of festivals such as Christmas, New Year etc. and the tickets which is provided
by company is termed as British Airways escape ticket. At that time, rates have been decreased
or cut down and the people who travel in gold or silver class are provided free upgrades for the
one way of the journey. Moreover, they provide discounts or vouchers and the flights rates at
domestic level are also get decreased.
Marketing strategies which is helpful for British Airways to achieve their objectives
Marketing strategy refers to the overall business plan of company which is useful for the
organisation in order to reach to their respective consumers or offer its business services. This
strategy contains the value of company, details of targeted customers and other elements.
Marketing strategy is the important component of the marketing plan as it a tangible document
which provide the details about the various types of marketing activities (Dahl, Gorn and
Weinberg, 2018). It is also termed as long term or forward looking approach which is useful in
planning or helps in achieving the goals and objectives which is used in attaining sustainable
competitive advantage. Various marketing strategies are discussed as:
STP: Segmentation: It is used in order to divide the consumers into different groups by
developing the common needs and requirements. It allows to develop an approach which
helps in order to meet the needs of the group in an effective manner and also provide
huge advantage. British Airways use demographic and psychographic segmentation
strategy in order to analyse the important functions of market as it help the company in
describing the nature and behaviour of each segment of customers. Targeting: It defines the target market of company which is used in order to find the
most attractive consumers. There are various factors such asExplain two of the following
m profitability, size and growth of customer group. British Airways use differentiate
targeting strategy as it make classifications of its target market.
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 Positioning: It include the position of company in the dynamic market. British Airways
become the leader of market because of its strategic marketing plans, alliances and
customer groups. Currently, it use customer class based positioning strategy.
Marketing Mix: Product: It is a service which is provided by company in order to satisfy the needs and
requirements of their respective consumers. The products which are offered by British
Airways are brilliant as it satisfy the needs and requirements of their customers.
Company provide reasonable range of flight tights and its airway is connected with the
busiest airports as it provide brilliant scheduled flights (Keegan, 2017). In addition to
this, British Airways provide best in-flight services in terms of drinks, food,
entertainment, comfortable seats etc. Place: It includes the location or the service provider and its accessibility to the
significant components of marketing. British Airways consider this fact and join hands
with most of the important destinations. The main channel of company are the call
centres, online websites and travel agents. Company also focuses on the easy accessibility
of various locations for smooth and rapid transactions. British Airways is considered as
the famous airline by covering six continents and providing its services to 160
destinations. Price: It include the various levels of price, discounts and commissions and the price
which is charged by company by offering its product. British Airways acutely kept its
pricing policy by considering each and every class of consumers avail themselves in
terms of its services (Moravcikova and et. al., 2017). Economy pricing strategy is
provided by company for those people who want tickets for low prices, medium pricing
strategy is provided to those who want fringe benefits and the premium pricing is for
those who want to travel with all high class benefits which is provided by company. Promotion: It includes the publicity, advertisement, sales promotion and many more.
British Airways use various strategies in order to attract more and more people as it use
mobile applications for the special airline customers, take help of internet as the techno-
savvy customers can save their time in order to book tickets by using internet. Moreover,
company use special flight tickets at reasonable prices for special occasions and they also
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name their tickets with the name of festival and by this customers travel to certain places
at reasonable prices. People: This factor of marketing include the people who are employed in an organisation
as they directly impact the customers and their spending by considering their services.
The staff or the employees should be trained in order to deal with customers in an
appropriate way. Good and well managed staff helps in attracting more customers and
boosting the reputation of company. In terms of British Airways, they give excellent level
of training to their employees as they provide training from crew to engineers (Chernev,
2018). Process: In includes the procedure by which products are being reached to their
respective customers. British Airways has proper base in order to provide its services to
their respective customers (Atwal and Williams, 2017). Company have a process which
helps in ensuring that customers get the excellent standard of quality every time when
they purchase any product from the company. For instance, in-flight meals, which
provide good quality standard every time.
 Physical Evidence: It defines the exact place from where the products have been sold and
ensures the quality of the services. British Airways design its tickets which is made with
little efforts and can easily attract more and more customers and for this, consumers
expect better quality and effort for their payment.
Ethical considerations
It defines the accretion of values and principles which helps in finding questions about
what is good or bad in the behaviour of human. It is defined by the ethics which find the reason
for acting of the actions of their employees. It defines the issues which arise in British Airways
which are mentioned as under: Codes of Practices: It define those practices by which British Airways deal with like its
issue of fuel which results in harming or damaging the atmosphere (Mokwa, 2017) . For
this, British Airways have big amount of CO2 emissions which develop the global
warming or damage the environment as it become the ethical issue by which they can lost
the trust of their respective customers. For this, their system need to be centralised which
allow the employees of British Airways in order to gain access of different areas. For
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instance, the employees who are in marketing department need to have information about
the promotion and advertising. E-mail: British Airways use e-mail in order to provide information to their clients about
the flights like changes in time. But it has negatively impacted the company as sometimes
customers does not check their e-mails or there might be the chances that their emails can
get hacked or the personal details can be leaked (Charter, 2017). For this, consumers feel
secure as British Airways make sure about the security and privacy of their respective
consumers when it comes to their communication. For this, British Airways are able to
overcome its problems as they can provide access points to their customers and give
different passwords in order to connect their devices with cloud Wi-Fi hotspot. While
sending emails, British Airways use codes of practice as it provide employees rules so
that they can easily follow while writing emails to their customers. For instance,
employees should not send any sort of emails to their consumers for their own personal
use as they have access for the purpose of business only.
 Whistle Blowing: It is the system which allow the workers and administration to report
about the wrong things which happen in the organisation. It involve the internet, emails,
abuse or bullying. It helps the British Airways as it allows their administrators to stop
anyone in the organisation from being abusing or bullying others by forming some sort of
policies and norms. Thus, to keep people safe in the organisation British Airways have its
own confidential email and its own phone number of its organisation. For instance, a
network technician can easily notice any illegal activity which happen in the organisation
(Armstrong and et. al., 2018). Moreover, British Airways does not allow the use of
internet in its working hours but somehow employees do it but it is against the practices
of company. In British Airways, its internet codes of practices defines that their
employees are not allowed to made any changes or modifications in their computer
systems. Thus, it means that from the system of British Airways, anything which is
downloaded is stored on the local system of company.
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RELATIONSHIP OF MARKETING FUNCTIONS
Covered in POSTER
RECOMMENDATIONS
From the above discussion various recommendations are given to British Airways which
are mentioned as under:
 British Airways need to conduct market research which is divided in terms of primary
and secondary sources as it easily classify that what is urgent and also describe that
which need to be fulfilled first.
 They need to make category of its customers in order to target them as because of this it
becomes easy to target their potential customers and also easy to sell their products and
services.
 Moreover, Company can also use penetration pricing policy or can fluctuate its pricing
according to their competitors as it helps them in gaining more and more customer base
or acquiring new market segment.
CONCLUSION
Thus, it is concluded that marketing is important in order to exchange the products and
services and also make the flow of products. For this, branding, strategy of product and
promotional strategy is used in order to promote the products in market as it helps in increasing
the sales of company. Moreover, marketing strategies are define which is used in order to
achieve the objectives and also the ethical considerations are described which is helpful for the
company. In addition to this, various marketing practices are defined such as 7P's, STP and
marketing research for the operation of organisation and also describe the relationship of
marketing functions with other functional areas. Lastly, recommendations is given in order to
improve the marketing functions of company.
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REFERENCES
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