When I was in college I took some interesting marketing classes. Some of these marketing concepts might explain why the airlines act like they do.
When a company is number one, they have to be very conservative in order to maintain the status quo. When a company is number two, they have to be somewhat innovative and aggressive to compete with number one. Number three is called a “Gorilla” because they are very innovative and aggressive.
When I was in college, Coke had Bill Cosby for a spokesman and Pepsi had Michael Jackson. Coke was number one, so they wanted slow growth, low innovation and conservative marketing. Pepsi was the opposite. At one point, Coke went against its given role and did something innovative and aggressive – they introduced New Coke. Everyone hated it because Coke was out of character. The Gorilla is Sprite. Their commercials feature NBA stars and rap music – the opposite of conservative.
McDonalds is very slow to change. Burger King is constantly coming up with new ideas like the triple bacon angioplasty burger. Jack in the Box (the gorilla) has to sell tacos, mocha shakes and sirloin burgers just to keep up.
In the past, American Airlines was the largest, most powerful and conservative with regard to growth, marketing and advertising. Delta and United were number two. To compete, they came up with innovative and aggressive marketing campaigns like Song and Ted. The Gorilla was Southwest. They grew aggressively, marketed aggressively and came up with lots of innovative ideas like ticketless travel. All of the airlines played their role. It would have been wrong for American to lead the way in innovation – why rock the boat when you are ahead?
Here’s the interesting part. A lot of the roles could be changing in the near future. Now that Southwest is the number one domestic carrier, they are suddenly interested in attracting conservative business travelers. In the past, Southwest flight attendants all wore short skirts. Now, if you wear a short skirt, you are escorted off the flight. If Delta/Northwest and United/Continental happens, you will see a big change in how they market themselves too. They will be very conservative with growth, advertising etc. If American moves to the number three spot, they will have to become more innovative in order to keep up. Has anyone else noticed how American’s advertising has become a lot more like Southwest’s in the last year? All of the sudden, they are becoming innovative.
