International Marketing Report: Malaysian Airlines Case Study

This report provides an in-depth analysis of the international marketing strategies of Malaysian Airlines. It begins by assessing whether the airline offers a product or service and if it can be considered a global company. The report then delves into the marketing mix elements (product, price, place, and promotion) employed by Malaysian Airlines, particularly in the context of crisis management and brand rebuilding. It examines the company's focus on overseas markets and the reasons behind this strategy, considering cultural factors and potential marketing mistakes. Furthermore, the report explores the importance of a global approach to international marketing, outlining key reasons such as increased sales, improved profits, and long-term security. It also identifies six crucial factors (demographic, economic, political, ecological, socio-cultural, and technological) that firms must consider to sustain themselves in the market. Finally, the report discusses the role of lead users in the adoption and diffusion of wearable technology products.

Running head: INTERNATIONAL MARKETING
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Name of the student
Name of the university
Author Note

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Section A
Question 1
a) Based on the personal opinion, it can be stated that Malaysian Airline does
provides a product or a service to the clients. Malaysian Airlines is a global aviation
organization with its auxiliary and equity investments, organized into four distinct
commercial sections namely, Air transportation, Ground services, Aircraft leasing and
Talent development. Malaysian Airlines has its structure created in such a manner that
it serves the drive for better transparency and focused management across the
respective auxiliary divisions of the company’s distinct and diverse divisions (Oum,
Tae Hoon, and Chunyan 2012). Apart from ensuring a better transparency and
governance the commercial divisions ensures a flexibility to explore the merger
opportunities for raising the capital to sustain itself, ensuring a better operational
activities as classified under the auxiliary divisions making it more competitive and
prompt to serve better to the clients (Frynas, Jedrzej George and Kamel Mellahi
2015). The largest contributing division of the organization is the Air transportation
services that include the Malaysian Air Berhad, Firefly and MASwings, network
carriers that serves both the Global and Domestic markets and all the distinct
segments of the passengers. Under the operations and the services as offered by the
Malaysian Airlines, comes another division of services known as the MAB Kargo that
specializes in providing standard, express and special cargo. The Malaysian Airlines,
which is a subsidiary of the Malaysian Airlines Group also, specializes in exceptional
services like ground handling services, engineering, training of the facilities as well as
the leasing of the aircrafts to provide customized and competitive aviation/aircraft
leasing solutions. The Malaysian Airlines is a national carrier of Malaysia that serves

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the clients, form and around Malaysia. It embodies and serves the clients with the
incredible heritage, tradition, cultures, cuisines and hospitality. In this manner, it can
be justified that Malaysian Airlines offers its products or services to its clients and can
be possibly considered as a multinational or global company (Van der Linden 2015)
b) Based on the marketing mix Malaysian airlines has carefully managed and
maintained all the seven marketing mix elements to effectively deal with the crisis
after the loss of the two airlines. In case of identifying the primary four marketing mix
it can be mentioned that the Product, Price, Place and Promotion have been well
managed to amend back its reputation (Lee, Kiefer, and Steve Carter 2012. Based on
the product mix, Malaysian airlines offer all the three classes in the international
bound flights while on the economy and the business class flights to help serve the
global customers better. It has around 75 aircrafts in its fleet where Boeing
manufactures 54 out of them and the rest of them have been manufactured by Airbus.
With reference to the Pricing mix, post crisis Malaysian airlines have cut down the
pricing due to the high competition as well as to rebuild the brand post crisis. The
providing of special treatment and premium quality services have helped it gather
distinction from the other low cost flights. The serving of complementary drinks and
meals has won many compliments justifying its pricing strategy. The place mix have
highlighted and improvised the networking system with the flights operating from the
home base of Kuala Lampur International Airport and a secondary hub of Kota
Kinabalu. The place of operation includes several other international and domestic
routes across a hundred and fifty countries with the assistance of its globalised
networks. The promotion mix of Malaysian airlines includes the efforts that have been
made to rebuild it brand as a premium and safe carrier after the crisis. The careful use
of Public Relation activities including the sponsorship of Premier League football

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teams has been extensively helpful. The traditional methods of advertising through
various medium helped it spread its brand name across the diverse sections of
customers (De Mooij 2013). As a part of the customer retention activities, Malaysian
airlines began offering frequent flyer programs to the regular customers, including
dedicated online flight booking facilities.
c) In rebuilding the brand, the foreign markets have become the primary focus
for Malaysian airlines. The reason to consider so is that Malaysian airlines have been
serving as a critical enabler to connect Malaysia to the world, while stimulating the
integrity and the integration of the entire nation (Deresky 2017). The situation and the
consideration of the Malaysian airlines are quite different since the airlines not only
serve its customers but it also is one of the crucial representations of the nation to the
entire world. It is the main source how the world is exhibited with the Malaysian
tradition and hospitality. This has also been helpful for the millions of tourists and the
businesspersons to relish on the Malaysian culture, heritage and beauty as well as the
active economy. Malaysian airlines are also one of the significant factors responsible
for the development of the nation since it drives nation to achieve a better economy.
As per the records, the aviation industry is one of the high grossing and income
multiplying industries than any other sectors. The unique combination and the
attribution of the Malaysian airlines as a national, economic and a domestic bond with
the entire world makes the success of the airlines highly vital for the nation and its
government. For every single individual the company recruits another four jobs are
supported elsewhere in the world, so it can be considered as one of the significant
flow in the economy (Steers, Richard and Luciara Nardon 2014). Thus, these are the
reasons that can be considered while concluding the fact that the overseas market has
become the prime focus for the Malaysian airlines.

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d) It can be likely considered that the culture has been one of the partial factors
that is responsible for the errors in the judgment. As per the information refurbished
by the marketing manager of Malaysian airlines, it can be concluded that the current
social and technological advancement can be used as one of the significant tools to
propagate one of the successful campaign, which are based on the informed decisions
and the learning outcomes from the past campaigns. Malaysia is a diverse market that
has multicultural and multiracial inhabitants with multilingual dialects, so the contents
that is needed to be used should be selected carefully and customized for all the
sections of the people. Failure to use the right medium of propaganda that can be
helpful to reach a large section of people can be a viable mistake that the company
can commit (Smith 2013). Most of the time the company chooses to focus on the
bigger campaign ideas instead of focusing on the strongest idea to help the company
gain back its reputation. Failure to reconsider the quality of the services and the
customer needs can also be considerably one of the probable and critical mistakes that
the company can commit in post crisis campaign. Specifically targeting of the Muslim
inhabitants of the nation would be a probable mistake since judge and
indiscrimination based on race would lend a severe blow to the company. Improper
and judgmental methods and ideologies of retention of consumer can also be one of
the crucial mistakes that can affect the company’s rebranding campaign. Lack of
imparting proper justification and misleading the consumers can be a possible cause
of campaign failure since the Public relation activities are executed to establish a
mutual trust between the company and the publics, failure to do so can diminish the
purpose of the campaign as a whole.

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Section B
Question 2
Global approach to the international marketing approach to a firm venturing in the
overseas is extremely significant and crucial (Peng 2013). There are certain major reasons to
believe so and act accordingly. The first reason is to increase sales. For example if a business
is flourishing its productivity in the host nation, it is likely to generate higher sales in the
other markets as well. It can be assumed that more that 90% of the world’s population retort
to vernacular language apart from English, thus it can be concluded that the population is
extensively global and if the company can look beyond the shores of only the domestic
productivity it should also be able to understand its prospects and potential outside the area of
control. The second reason is improvement in the profits. Many firms are not considerably
competitive so therefore the price pressures is less. It can likely be considered that a product
sold in the home country significantly costs higher in the foreign markets and the primary
reason being the export markets (Mukherjee et al. 2013). The third reason is short-term
security where the business would be less liable and venerable to the fluctuations and
downturns of the market. The fourth reason is long-term security where the host market
would probably sustain a high competition from within and outside. So a firm having excess
capacity would be necessarily look forward to trade internationally, if the firm wishes to keep
up with the expanding market and apply its potential. The fifth reason is to increase
innovation, where the extension of the customer base both domestically and internationally
would help the firm to finance the development of a new product. The sixth reason is the
exclusivity where a firm’s management might have exclusive information and knowledge
about the international prospects and the market that the other companies are not necessarily
aware about. This can help the firm grow both internally and extensively. For all these

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reason, the international approach to a global market is appropriate for any firm (Terpstra et
al. 2012).
The six significant factors that should be considered by any firm to sustain itself in the
market are Demographic, Economic, Political, Ecological, Socio-cultural and Technological
factors (Radebaugh 2014). The demographic forces relate to the people and the population
based on the density, age, gender, occupation and the other statistics. Understanding the
demographics is necessary since the reason of the business is dependent on the needs and
demands of the demographics. The economic factor signifies the factors that affect the
consumer purchasing behavior and their contribution towards a brand or product. The socio-
cultural factors refer to the factors that affect the society’s basic value and norms including
their behavior and preference. The basic concept of the same is generated from the fact that
the consumers are a vital part of the society and the peer cultural group is fundamental in
shaping their beliefs and perception. Few business failures often tend to occur due to the lack
of understand the cultural attributes. Ecological factors are also the natural forces that are
necessary to understand since the natural resources are one of the primary inputs that should
be taken into consideration. Political forces are equally vital for any business since the
political environment limits every business. This includes the laws, the public agencies and
the pressure groups which influences and can restrict the organization and individuals in the
society, this affecting the business. Thus, it can be concluded that the marketing decisions
and business operations can be strongly influenced and affected by the developments in the
political environment.
Question 5
The lead users are considered as important resources for the marketers to manage
adoption and diffusion of wearable technology products. From the various evidences, it can

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be seen that the lead users are more concerned with the innovation and developments in
various domains with the perceiving and adoption of newer technologies. The lead users have
the abilities to demonstrate strong leadership opinions and lesser abilities to obtain the
opinions and feedbacks. The lead users concept is an important aspect of the marketing
discipline, which focuses on the management of innovation and even discusses the various
implications of developing products, innovating those and remain beneficial for the marketers
(Aldhaban 2012). Though the lead users have lesser roles and responsibilities in the
development of products, they are more focused on the adoption and diffusion of new
consumer products and services. The lead users gain the most of benefits from the innovation
procedures and can even help in meeting the needs and requirements of people that are left
unfulfilled by the commercially available products (Chuah et al. 2016).
Wearable technologies have led to the improvement in technologies and few
examples of wearable technologies are smart watches, Google glass, etc. The wearable
technologies are small yet convenient for the management of various tasks including most of
the things that can be done on a smart phone. It has enhanced the way of managing
communication has also made it easy to make calls, surf internet as well as progress in
everyday lives quite easily (Chuah et al. 2016). The wearable devices have fulfilled most of
the tasks performed on a smart phone and these devices consist of mp3 player, camera, bank
apps and can even make calls and capture videos anytime and anywhere. There are other
ways of socializing with people with the help of these wearable technologies and these can
also facilitate the use of technology to change the process of communication largely (Kim, Ki
Joon and Dong-Hee Shin 2015). Social networks could also be accessed with the use of these
wearable technologies and this could further help in gaining accessibility to various networks
too.

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With the use of wearable technologies, social media access has been easy and it has
enabled many people to communicate with each other and update every move made by
people. The Voice over Internet protocol or VoIP has also revolutionized the areas of
communication by using wearable technologies. The lead users are responsible for the
marketing activities and so it is necessary for them to use the wearable technologies and
make sure that the marketing activities are managed properly (Thierer 2015). By using the
wearable technologies, the lead users would be able to communicate with the businesses and
check out their needs and preferences to fulfill those and make the organization successful in
the competitive business environment. The wearable technologies promote instant
connectivity along with various kinds of entertainment activities. The wearable technologies
have changed the way brands and marketers connect with the leader users with the use of
GPS, Google search history, etc (Thierer 2015). the lead users have capitalized on the brands
by personalizing their messages and experiences that have been delivered to the customers.
The lead users, by utilizing the wearable technologies, have managed to facilitate the
instantaneous connections and evolved the business successfully too. It is easy for them to
make phone calls, access internet and even capture pictures and videos in case of emergency
to make progress in business (Aldhaban 2012). There are few other benefits too such as
improving personal safety and these devices can even provide security for the various files
and information that have been stored.

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