Southwest Brand Built On The Consumer Experience
As I boarded a recent Southwest Airline's flight, a blind man was escorted to the front of the line. "Excuse me while I take the pilot to the cabin," quipped the ticket
agent to the amusement of my fellow passengers. As I settled into my seat, a flight attendant sang the flight instructions, and the pilot cracked jokes as we departed the gate.
The Southwest experience is famous among experienced travelers, and it is the envy of the industry. And that fame, along with a smart business plan and strong management, has
resulted in 34 straight years of profitability, propelling Southwest to become the nation's largest airline in terms of domestic passengers.
What is Southwest's secret sauce? Clearly its low-cost offering has lured customers since its founding 36 years ago. But the Southwest brand is about much more than low cost.
What really sets Southwest apart is its focus on the customer experience. "When it comes to Customer Service, we refuse to be complacent," says Southwest president Colleen Barret
on the airline's Web site.
Southwest built its brand by consistently integrating the positive customer experience at every touch point, making it one of the strongest brands in the world. To ensure
consistency of message, Southwest Airlines adopted integrated communications in its very early days. The public relations department reported to the vice president of marketing,
and all other marketing functions worked in concert under one umbrella.
Although PR now reports directly to the president, there remains a close working relationship with its marketing counterparts. Each month, several departments, including PR and
marketing, gather to discuss upcoming items and projects that impact the company's brand. Each department plays an integral part, whether it is designing a new product,
determining its audience, crafting a targeted message, or bringing the message to market. All messages support and reinforce the larger customer experience.
The Role Of PR In The Integrated Marketing Mix
Recognizing that brands are built through consistent messaging in every communications channel, Southwest Airlines' success has been at least partly attributable to its
understanding of the value of integration and the role of public relations in the marketing mix. While advertising builds brand equity in the most simplistic and memorable ways,
public relations establishes credibility and tells the brand story more completely. Database marketing touches consumers one-to-one. The Internet engages them in a dialogue. Sales
promotion motivates them to action. The cohesive integration of these various marketing disciplines surrounds consumers, reaching them wherever they are in a meaningful way on an
individual level.
Novartis Differentiates Itself
The Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis employed an integrated corporate reputation campaign to build its brand and to differentiate itself in an industry plagued by
headlines citing drug recalls, insufficient flu vaccine supplies and the rising cost of medicine. In 2001, when Novartis launched a campaign aimed at thought leaders in the
medical, policy, research and investing worlds, there was little awareness of the company in the U.S. The campaign combined high-level media outreach, targeted corporate
advertising, nationwide internal communications and candid investor outreach to communicate three core themes: innovation, empathy and transparency.
The consistency of these messages through all communications channels has propelled Novartis' reputation above that of many of its competitors. Today it is widely considered to
be one of the best and most respected healthcare institutions in the world. By the end of 2006, Novartis had earned top-tier industry nods, such as being ranked second among all
pharma companies on Fortune's "World's Most Admired Companies" list and being one of only two pharma companies listed on BusinessWeek's "Best Global Brands" list.
Novartis also registered near record-high awareness and favorability levels among its target audiences.
The Keys To Success
The successful implementation of an integrated marketing campaign requires discipline and determination. Some important components of successful integrated campaigns
include:
1. C-Suite Commitment: The CEO must support the concept totally, rewarding success and discouraging dissidence. Although the commitment emanates from the top, it must
ultimately become part of the culture.
2. Training: Marketers from all disciplines must be trained to be broader and more encompassing in their thinking, regardless of their backgrounds. It requires both
understanding and an open mindset that recognizes the role each discipline can play in an integrated campaign.
3. Planning: Successful integrated marketing campaigns start with planning, where advertising solutions traditionally dominate, and extend to the creative process and
ultimately through to execution. Equal status must be extended to all disciplines, as each plays a role in creating equity and brand preference among consumers.
4. Multi-disciplinary Creative Development: A really big idea is one that can be effectively applied across many marketing disciplines and extended to all channels of
communication. It requires that ideas be drawn from a broader range of perspectives, not devised by one discipline and later adapted to others.
5. Whole Picture Measure-ment: An integrated campaign can be more readily held accountable for business performance. It is also incumbent on integrated marketing
communications strategists to measure the effectiveness of each channel of communications so they can modulate the marketing mix for optimal return on investment.
Most important, regardless of how consumers receive information - employees, a newspaper article, a 30-second television spot, the Internet or a billboard - the message must
always be the same. The most powerful public relations campaigns are those that reinforce the overall brand platform. And why not? Consistency works in marketing.
CONTACT:
Andy Hopson is managing director of Ruder Finn's Chicago office and a founder of the Council of PR Firms. He can be reached at [email protected].