Marketing paragraph

British Airways as case study

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British Airways is a company that deals with air transport. It was started in the year 1974 by the British and its headquarters are in London. It emerged as a merger of two major airlines in the United Kingdom. These included British European Airways and British Overseas Airways Corporation. It ranked number two among other airlines in Britain. It’s main routes are in Britain, the United Kingdom, the United States, Venezuela, Peru and Colombia among other countries (Chaffey et al., 2009). Other routes include the routes that were served by the other airlines before they merged to form one major airline. Just as the other companies in the tourism and hospitality industry, it has been affected by the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic (Amankwah-Amoah, 2020). So many travel routes were restricted and others are still restricted. This has led to reduced revenue and profits making the company face a huge recession (British Airways, 2021). There is need to come up with better marketing strategies to increase the public visibility of the airline. The proposed marketing strategy for the brand is updating the website of the company to have modern and advanced features that will pass information about the brand to the target customers. The social media platforms should be activated and the content activated regularly to give in time information to the customers (Tapp, 2014).

The major objectives for the digital marketing strategy are:

i. Increase the number of followers on Twitter and Instagram by 25% after two years.

ii. To increase the number of likes on Facebook and connections of Linked In by 17% after every one month.

iii. To create direct customers who communicate to the company through the website. The number of direct clients is expected to increase by 42% after 6 months.

The target market is majorly the people from every part of the country who travel for business and leisure. The expected benefit is to create a broader visibility on digital platforms.

2.1 External macro-environmental and micro-environmental factors for British Airways

· External macro-environmental

Firstly, political stability in the UK has a direct impact on the profitability and increase of British Airways (Pratap, 2020), but Brexit has forced British Airways to consider new border and immigration policies. Meanwhile, the outbreak of COVID-19 has made the new border and immigration policies, which were already in need of readjustment, even more precarious (Pratap, 2020). Secondly, as a result of COVID-19, the country’s economic growth fell sharply, leading to a period of recession in the UK. Thus, for British Airways, this means fewer passengers flying, fewer flights happening, hurting revenue and profits (British Airways, 2021). Concurrently, consumer attitudes towards climate change and sustainable development are shifting. More consumers are looking for more sustainable ways to consume, including sustainable ways to travel (Ferrán, 2020). Finally, the way consumers buy has changed dramatically as the development of smartphones and apps has enabled more consumers to book their holidays online (Amankwah-Amoah, 2020).

· Micro-environmental

Firstly, there is no cost switching when consumers switch to an alternative airline. This means that the bargaining power of the purchaser is quite high (Pratap, 2020). However, there is now increased consumer demand for freight, particularly for personal protective equipment, due to COVID-19 (Amankwah-Amoah, 2020). British Airways has significant resources and capabilities, such as the restructuring of British Airways’ cargo route business in partnership with IAG Cargo. Therefore, the majority of consumers still trust British Airways and would prefer it for cargo (British Airways, 2021). Meanwhile, the devastating impact of COVID-19 on travel meant that British Airways’ management team had no choice but to take urgent action to restructure its operations to ensure it could emerge from the crisis and still be able to compete (British Airways, 2021).

Based on the description above, this section uses PESTLE analysis for assessing external factors or macro-environmental factors that have an impact on the company and which contribute to strategic marketing. It consists of political, legal, environmental, social, economic and technological factors, as shown in Figure 1. Since British Airways is a company, all these factors are likely to have a direct impact on it.

Figure 1: PESTLE analysis

Source: (Professional Academy, 2021)

· Political factors

All companies and businesses require to be regulated. They should have rules and regulations because most of the factors depend on the safety of workers and customers. Some of these rules that should be followed include the routes to be followed, the spots that are used by the airports, the prices set, the costs paid for infrastructure and the stakeholders chosen for the company. It is the role of the government from different countries to ensure that all measures are taken into consideration especially those that concern unlawful immigration and violence (Dave and Smith, 2012). British Airline has to strictly follow the regulations and rules set in place by governments of different countries where it operates to ensure that the safety and security of all the passengers who fly at different times and different places. The major rules and regulations put in place by the government during COVID-19 was the closure of boundaries and travel restrictions within countries. This affected the service delivery of the airlines and the amount of profits gained reduced abruptly. The recovery of the airline was so much dependent of the government lifting travel restrictions so that its operations could run as usual. Even now, some countries are still under a lock down and this has affected the airline from maximizing on its potential. The government regulations that have been put in place to ensure that companies take precautionary measures against COVID-19 include ensuring there is social distancing in the airlines (Almeida, Santos and Monteiro, 2020). The British Airline is restricted to carry a specific number of passengers and not its full capacity as it was before.

· Economic factors

One of the main factors in the travel industry especially airlines is the state of the economy (Amankwah-Amoah, 2020). This factor determines the sustainability of a business (Amankwah-Amoah, 2020). When there is a recession, people are not able to travel a lot because the money for leisure and business is limited. The COVID-19 pandemic downfall has affected the British Airways through the increased prices of fuels; financial difficulties experienced by all countries operating under the airline due to COVID-19 and restricted number of travellers moving to different countries for holidays or business (British Airways, 2021). The businesses by the airline are affected by a reduction in capital markets, tightening and reduction of household budgets, increased rates of unemployment and decrease in prices of house (Gössling, Scott and Hall, 2020). During the beginning of COVID-19, the measures for travel restrictions were put in place abruptly. Flights were cancelled yet some of the customers had important meeting to attend to. This made the customers lose confidence in some of the airlines British Airline being among them (British Airways, 2021).

Other direct factors that have affected the company include inflation rates, exchange rates of the currency and economic climate (Pratap, 2020). The cost of fuel has been constantly rising and this has been one of the challenges that the airline is currently facing (Ferrán, 2020). Currently, so many people lost their jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic and this has affected the overall GDP of the country. People do not have enough income that enables them to travel to different destinations for leisure. Most people have shifted their consumer behaviours from leisure to trying to meet the basic needs (Almeida, Santos and Monteiro, 2020). The opportunities that were also available to the businesses moving to other countries for conferences and meetings have reduced. These days, meeting and international conferences are done online, and this has also affected the economic state of the airline (Gössling, Scott and Hall, 2020).

· Social factors

The customers who use the airline were greatly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Some lost their jobs making them to shift their behaviours from leisure to meeting the basic needs. The increase of fuel prices and reduction in the number of passengers per flight has led to the increase in fares for passengers travelling to different countries. Most of the customers want airlines that are able to provide quality services at lower prices which has been difficult for British airline (Sharma,Thomas and Paul, 2021). Meanwhile, consumers who had planned to travel were forced to cancel their travel plans due to a degree of lock down by various countries and constant adjustments to their entry policies (Maneenop and Kotcharin, 2020).

· Technological factors

Technology is one of the areas that have played a big role in the growth and success of the company (Caliskan, Özkan Özen and Ozturkoglu, 2020). The company has its own website and different social media pages where customers can book their flights and directly interact with the company for customer care services. The booking processes have become smoother, quicker and more convenient (Hemann and Burbary, 2013). However, the company has not embraced the use of technology in most of its functions (British Airways, 2021). It is necessary that it maximizes the use of social media and website to reach more customers (Pratap, 2020). Digital marketing should be one of the most embraced technologies by the company. The airline has failed in constantly checking its website in order to keep it updated. Sometimes, there are delays in responding to the needs of customers and poor customer care services. All this is as a result of poor technology (Katsoni and Poulaki, 2021).

· Legal factors

The legal factors that are directly connected to British Airways are many. The business of the airline is controlled gradually. The airline operates in specific routes while in other routes it is restricted because of legal factors and legislature put in place by different governments (Tien, 2020). The legislature focuses on issues such as infrastructure to the capacity of the airline. Currently, the COVID-19 regulations are the major factors affecting the operation of the company. Some of the boundaries are closed and it is not allowed to travel with passengers in its full capacity (Tien, 2020). Notably, every person has to have a COVID-19 certificate before moving to different countries. This process is sometimes tedious (Maneenop and Kotcharin, 2020).

· Environmental factors

Airlines are ranked as the leading causes of air and noise pollution. British airline has faced challenges of polluting the environment by reducing the quality of air and noise through carbon emissions and loud sounds as the airplanes moves from one place to another (Ferrán, 2020). Policy makers have started developing regulations that are meant to adopt green engines that have less impact to the environment (Alshaketheep et al., 2020). Those that pollute highly will receive high taxes and negative incentives as a form of penalty for environmental pollution (Ferrán, 2020).

3.1 Core strategy of digital marketing

As stated in the executive summary of the first part, the purpose of the company’s digital marketing strategy is to reverse the adverse impact of the COVID-19. At present, the epidemic situation in England is developing in a good direction, and after the end of the epidemic, tourism usually has a retaliatory rebound. However, the epidemic will certainly have an impact on the social economy, which may lead to the degradation of consumer demand, so low-price and high-frequency services can better meet the needs of consumers. So the Internet and social media give companies the opportunity to diversify their services to increase their profitability and reputation (Correa, Hinsley, De Zúñiga, 2010; Spillecke, Perrey, 2012).

First of all, the company should publish relevant service information on social media network (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram), so that it can use the community effect on social media to increase the company’s influence (Ahuja and Galvin, 2003; Zhang and Daugherty, 2009). According to the survey, 74 percent of the world’s adults use social media (Duggan et al, 2015), at least half of them pay attention to brand information (van Belleghem et al, 2011). Therefore, if the product information reaches a certain number of hits on various social media, it can play an effective role in publicity. Secondly, because the traditional network marketing method is characterized by keywords online, social media can improve this way of relying on search engines, and the number of hits on social media applications will be converted into the number of views on the website. The company can timely update the product information on the website to provide different kinds of services for different passengers, and establish contact with users to achieve marketing objectives (Kelly, Kerr, Drennan, 2010).

Overall, the most important part of our marketing strategy is to rely on social media links to interact with consumers and build awareness. It’s very helpful for the company to keep a high reputation in the epidemic.

3.2 Aims of the strategy

The purpose of the company's marketing strategy is to strengthen its reputation and increase sales. Because of the influence of covid-19, the aviation service industry may be gradually not expected or forgotten by people. What the company needs to do at this stage is to establish contact with customers as far as possible and improve the product diversity of the company, so as to prepare for occupying market share after the epidemic. As Ahmed said (2017), consumers rely on either brand awareness or price awareness when making purchase choices, we only by establishing enough contact and reputation with consumers can enhance their brand and price awareness. Next, another important purpose of the company is to save costs in the economic downturn. The cost of digital marketing strategy marketing using social media is usually lower than that of traditional marketing (Godey et al, 2016). The high cost of traditional marketing is not suitable for companies that continue to be low-profit after the epidemic situation, the digital marketing strategy formulated by the company can achieve the best results with the lowest cost. For example, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines adopted a similar strategy in 2011, they used twitter to launch the topic of their new route, and shared it through YouTube. With extremely low cost, they achieved more than expected results and improved the company's reputation. This is what we want to learn from this digital marketing strategy.

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