“TV is the quickest medium but cannot hold the brand on its own,” are the very first lines that Sangeeta Sharma, Manager Marketing, South Asia, Lufthansa says, when we enquire about the reasons Lufthansa has stayed away from standard TV advertisements. The truth is, while trying to play the contrarian, Lufthansa’s marketing strategies have been based upon precise and up-to-date customer intelligence – the primary reason that Lufthansa, instead of relying on the time & tested mode of TV commercials, has rather preferred only that exposure to the TV medium where they could quantify the investment-response ratio.
One critical example is their selective sponsorship of CNBC All For This One Moment (presented by Shereen Bhan, who interviews corporate leaders), where – rather than simply paying up money for being associated with the programme – Lufthansa developed the content within the programme and tracked viewer response with help from CNBC. Few companies in India have the wherewithal to get into viewer analytics like this. In another example, Lufthansa has also been the first airline to use TV tickers in stock screens. States Punit Kapoor, AVP, MRM Worldwide India (which handles the Lufthansa account globally), “Our specific TG, the business travelers were used to seeing only stock tickers, but to see a Lufthansa ticker added to our brand proposition.” While the airline has shied away from TV advertising, they have not been averse to using tactical campaigns on radio and also branding via print & outdoor campaigns. Saket Sinha, Partner-Client Leadership, Mindshare (the media planning agency for Lufthansa) shares, “Lufthansa has grown over the years and the reason for such phenomenal growth has been sharp targeting and understanding of the consumer insights. The kind of media that we’ve chosen for Lufthansa is solely based on the marketing needs. We did not choose TV because TV gets into interruption rather than engagement.”
Late 2009, the carrier – which had completed 50 years of operations in the country – was voted “Best International Airline in India” at the CNBC Awaaz Travel Awards. The focus this year is, however, towards strengthening the carrier’s position in India as the leading European airline. In reality, with 49 weekly flights to seven Indian destinations, Lufthansa is clearly today the top European carrier in India. In fact, India is second only to United States when it comes to the number of weekly frequencies that the airline operates. So the job is not that tough apparently. But with an emphasized focus on new media, Lufthansa is additionally attempting to be a radical trendsetter.
One critical example is their selective sponsorship of CNBC All For This One Moment (presented by Shereen Bhan, who interviews corporate leaders), where – rather than simply paying up money for being associated with the programme – Lufthansa developed the content within the programme and tracked viewer response with help from CNBC. Few companies in India have the wherewithal to get into viewer analytics like this. In another example, Lufthansa has also been the first airline to use TV tickers in stock screens. States Punit Kapoor, AVP, MRM Worldwide India (which handles the Lufthansa account globally), “Our specific TG, the business travelers were used to seeing only stock tickers, but to see a Lufthansa ticker added to our brand proposition.” While the airline has shied away from TV advertising, they have not been averse to using tactical campaigns on radio and also branding via print & outdoor campaigns. Saket Sinha, Partner-Client Leadership, Mindshare (the media planning agency for Lufthansa) shares, “Lufthansa has grown over the years and the reason for such phenomenal growth has been sharp targeting and understanding of the consumer insights. The kind of media that we’ve chosen for Lufthansa is solely based on the marketing needs. We did not choose TV because TV gets into interruption rather than engagement.”
Late 2009, the carrier – which had completed 50 years of operations in the country – was voted “Best International Airline in India” at the CNBC Awaaz Travel Awards. The focus this year is, however, towards strengthening the carrier’s position in India as the leading European airline. In reality, with 49 weekly flights to seven Indian destinations, Lufthansa is clearly today the top European carrier in India. In fact, India is second only to United States when it comes to the number of weekly frequencies that the airline operates. So the job is not that tough apparently. But with an emphasized focus on new media, Lufthansa is additionally attempting to be a radical trendsetter.
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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2011.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).
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