Brendan is just one of the countless Australians who hold Qantas as their top-of-mind air transportation provider. This is interesting when you consider that in 2014 the airline went through some challenging times, facing profit loss and industrial action among other things. These challenges impacted consumer perceptions of the brand significantly.

So how did Qantas overcome these challenges and turn consumer perceptions back around?

The Dark Days

Almost three years ago, the airline carrier reported its biggest ever annual loss at $2.8 billion AU. The airline cited poor consumer spending, rising fuel cost, and tough competition internationally and domestically, as some of the factors that contributed to its challenging financial position. At that time, Qantas dealt with a fair amount of negative publicity and the question of whether it would survive the crisis was on the minds of many people.

The Winning Approach

Qantas needed to reconnect with its target market. Once the airline began to leverage the data it was holding onto from their website and Frequent Flyers feedback among others, it was able to draw on customer insights to identify marketing opportunities. Qantas compiled insights from 30 years of data history, around:

• Customer flying behaviour;
• Frequent flyer profiles;
• Customer NPS and feedback; and
• Web and social media interactions.

Once Qantas had the foundations for market segmentation in place the ‘Feels like Home’ campaign was developed and launched in 2014, with follow up campaigns in 2015 and 2017. The videos featured real Qantas customers and employees and reached over 20 million people across the world. Moreover, based on House of Brand’s January to March 2017 Brand Tracking Research, 75% of Australians felt more positive about the brand after seeing the videos, while 59% of Australians were encouraged to fly with Qantas.

When we fast forward three years and look at Qantas now, it looks completely different.

Qantas had been busy repositioning its brand, with a focus on improving the customer experience. It seems that Qantas’ efforts have paid off, as Qantas now has the highest level of brand trust compared to other major competitors in Australia (based on the Corporate Trust Survey conducted by Actuity). Qantas’ Investor Day Report, which was presented in May 2017, revealed that Qantas is focused on positioning itself as a well-known and respected, transparent and honest airline, known for putting customers before profits and providing quality service.

Recipe for Success

“Setting up the right content, technology and channel execution on top ultimately to deliver business change is what is key to success.” – Stephanie Tully, CMO, Qantas

So, what did Qantas do to get out of its’ ‘dark days‘? To begin repairing the brand and improving customers’ perceptions and experiences, Qantas made investments in leveraging its extensive data warehouses, its people, its brand, and digital technology.

Having been around for almost 100 years, Qantas was sitting on a mountain of data that It wasn’t doing much with. Qantas used this data to inform and validate decisions in marketing and other areas of the business. The airline utilised a combination of digital and offline tools and methods to improve customer service and brand perceptions, focused on strengthening consumer trust in the brand.

Qantas’ Marketing Chief, Stephanie Tully, said that balancing these have been essential to achieving positive outcomes from the airline’s improvement initiatives.

Key Takeaways

Qantas employed a holistic approach to improving its brand perception, ultimately improving its overall business performance. Based on customer data that Qantas has collected, it tailored its awareness campaign to appeal to its target market and utilised digital channels and tools to reach them.

Wouldn’t it be great if we were all able to replicate the success of Qantas? But where does one even start? Here are some hot tips to help you get started.

• Know your Target Market – Knowing your target market will enable you to understand who they are (demographics and psychographics) and better understand how to appeal to them.
• Map the Customer Journey – This will enable you to identify what your target market is feeling, needing and thinking, and what they are doing at each stage of the path to purchase. It also helps you identify the possible touch points or channels to reach them at each stage of the purchase journey. You can also identify where most marketing support is needed to help guide them down the sales funnel.
• Develop a Strategy – With information on hand, you can now develop an approach for reaching your target market. Start by selecting the marketing channels and tactics that would most likely appeal to your target market.
• Implement Your Plan – Execute the activities as per the strategy and begin driving meaningful action (website traffic, sales, sign-ups, etc.).
• Monitor and Measure – To gauge the effectiveness of your marketing efforts, regularly collect and analyse data, taking note of trends to uncover insights. Begin setting up monthly reports that identify key metrics that will help you guide future efforts to continually generate success.
• Use data to inform decisions – Use the insights uncovered from your activities to guide your decision-making.

Interested in exploring how Reload Consulting can help build or rebuild a strong, customer-focused brand for your business?
Contact Us for an obligation-free consultation, or give us a call on 1300 714 146.

The post Brand Awareness in the Digital Age – How Qantas Leveraged Data to Save its Brand appeared first on Reload Consulting.

What is a value proposition? Simply said, it is a succinct statement that summarises what a brand offers its customers and why consumers should choose the brand over another. To give you an idea, here are some of the examples of brands with a compelling value proposition.

Survey Monkey: “Create Surveys, Get Answers.”
Canva: “Beautiful design in 30 seconds.”
CoSchedule: “The Best Way To Plan Your Marketing, Save A Ton of Time.”
Evernote: “Remember Everything”
Skype: “Skype keeps the world talking for free. Share, message and call-now with group video on mobile and tablet too.
Bitly: “Shorten. Share. Measure.”
Google Drive: “A safe place for all your files.”
PayPanther: “ Helping businesses manager their files/ emails/invoices/expenses/accounting/ life/events/clients.”
Hootsuite: “The best social media tool for business. Manage all your social media marketing from one tool.”
Netflix: “See what’s next. Watch anywhere. Cancel anytime.”

Now, how does a brand come up with a value proposition that will encourage customers to avail of the products and/or services it offers? In developing a value proposition, there are several factors to consider such as the target market, the competitors and the value that the product brings to customers.

Target Market

Assess the demographics and psychographics. The demographics include information such as the age, gender, location occupation (etc) of the target market. On the other hand, the psychographics looks into the values, opinions, habits and attitudes of the market.

Competitor Information

What are the substitutes or products and services that can be used in lieu of yours? Having a clear understanding of the competition and what they offer can help a brand assess what it is up against. In doing so, it would be good to study the similarities and differences of what competitors offer.

Product Value and Features

Equally essential is to identify the value that the product will bring to customers or how it will benefit them or solve a problem. This usually is drawn from having a clear understanding of

1. The product, and
2. The target market/s (their desires and what would entice them to choose a product over another)

The process involves assessing the product or service by laying out all its features and then ensuring that the product or service features and delivery meets the needs and expectations of the customer. For example, for customers who are conscious about cost, this could be the price at which a product is sold. This could also be the quality of the product regardless of price for those that give more weight to quality. In terms of product delivery, the customer’s communication and service delivery preference should be considered as well.

Nowadays, competition among businesses is tougher than ever before. Customers are presented with countless options to choose from for their needs and wants. Having a well written and thought out value proposition can help entice customers to choose a product over another. The process of arriving at a great value proposition involves gaining a clear understanding of the competition, the customer and identifying what they perceive as valuable then composing a message that clearly communicates how the product or service can address their needs.

The post How to realise your brand’s value and how to share it appeared first on Reload Consulting.