Free Marketing Dissertations - United Air Lines Was The Most Severely Hit Of The Big Three Us Airlines After
United Air Lines was the most severely hit of the big three US airlines after 11 September 2001, and was forced to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy at the end of 2002. However, after undergoing a drastic restructuring programme, the airline had received the necessary financing to emerge from bankruptcy by the end of 2003. All the US airlines are currently experiencing brand identity crises, as the US continues to associate air travel with the spread of international terrorism.
The European airlines British Airways (BA) and Deutsche Lufthansa have also experienced mixed fortunes. While the share of BA fell steadily over the review period, to 4% in 2004, that of Lufthansa rose, placing it almost equal with BA, and Lufthansa recorded increased sales and achieved profits in the first quarter of 2004, compared to a loss in the same period of the previous year. (Global Market Information Database, 2005)Both these firms are struggling to compete with the strongly growing no frills airlines, potentially indicating that the national brand reinforcement is no longer enough to build a strong brand in the airline industry, and that something more is needed.
Brand Essence
Govers and Schoormans (2005) provide one of the best pieces on the concept of brand management, claiming that, beyond their functional utility and purpose, products and series have a symbolic meaning, and parts of this symbolic meaning are accounted for by concepts like brand personality and product-user image, which describe the symbolic meaning associated with the brand or product class. Plummer (1984) also focused strongly on the personality of brands, claiming that there are, in reality, two different faces of brand personality, and it is necessary to understand both faces in order to better grasp the totality and power of this useful strategic concept. A brand presents itself to the world in many ways, through the product itself, through its packaging, its name and where it is sold. A brand sold in a supermarket or via the internet, is attempting to communicate something, but the world, on the other hand, interprets the brand through many different filters; through experience, through perceptions, misconceptions, the value systems of the individuals out there in the world, and, of course, all the noise in the system. The two faces of brand personality therefore are input, that is, what advertisers want consumers to think and feel, and out-take, what consumers actually do think and feel, and these two perspectives on brand personality can be expressed in two forms. The first can be seen as the brand personality statement; and the other as the brand personality profiles, which are consumer perceptions of the brand. (de Chernatony and McDonald, 2003)
In terms of a brand personality for an airline, this can be vitally important, as few markets are as brutally competitive as the airline market.
