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John Tantillo's Brand Winner... And Loser: Guns and Airlines
Posted by The Marketing Doctor at 5/17/2009 11:52 PM 
Categories: Branding
Tags: plane Buffalo NRA guns Tantillo airlines Sullenberger Sully Greenpeace Colgan Air target market marketing branding rifles anti-gun legislation crash Continental hunters
Categories: Branding
Tags: plane Buffalo NRA guns Tantillo airlines Sullenberger Sully Greenpeace Colgan Air target market marketing branding rifles anti-gun legislation crash Continental hunters
Brand Winner… | And Loser |
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John Tantillo’s Winner and Loser of The Week:
Winner: Guns
Loser: Airlines
Folks, without further ado:
The Winner
The gun industry.
Since November, Americans have been buying an unprecedented amount of guns and ammo. The trend might be political —i.e., worries that a Democratic president might succeed in passing anti-gun legislation. Whatever the reason, the gun industry is going gangbusters.
More than cash register success, the industry might actually be on the brink of finally claiming the kind of brand high ground that it has sought for a long time. Anti-gun forces have framed guns as environmentally unfriendly, but a few facts have emerged that might change the brand image for the future.
I’m talking about guns and gun owners as the real-dollar champions of our national parks and conservation efforts. Turns out that gun owners and hunters have long paid a huge chunk of the cost it takes to keep our parks strong and our wildlife flourishing.
It’s ironic, but people hunting with guns might be doing more to save our national wildlife than the city-bound environmentalists with good intentions and a membership with Greenpeace. It’s nearly a Teddy Roosevelt vision of conservation: shoot to save. One statistic has gun owners providing fish and game agencies with over 5.3 billion dollars since 1939 because of the licensing and tagging requirements.
In these tough times, with budgets being cut right and left and governors like Arnold Schwarzenegger contemplating selling off state land like Alcatraz Island to fund huge deficits, the massive increase in gun buying —over 7 million background checks done since November— is guaranteed to raise the revenue for conservation efforts and possibly save a lot of wilderness and wildlife… thanks to funds raised from gun owners.
This is a great brand opportunity for the gun industry, and my guess is that they’ll use it to start changing minds about gun ownership. Why not launch a multi-media marketing campaign to emphasize the message that guns are green? Guns: they do the environment and the economy good!
Stay tuned.
The Loser
It’s difficult to gauge the long-term damage to the airline industry caused by this week’s revelations on the reasons behind last winter’s crash of a Colgan Air commuter plane in Buffalo. But my guess is that the damage will be big.
Not too long ago, we had Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger and his miraculous water landing to celebrate. (See my post here.)
Unfortunately, it now looks like Sully was yesteryear’s version of what it meant to be a pilot, the exception to the rule when it comes to commercial pilots. Today’s polite is typically under-paid, under-trained, over-tired… hardly heroic or confidence-inspiring.
The congressional hearings on the Buffalo crash revealed that the co-pilot of the doomed plane was paid less than 25,000 per year, had never flown with ice on the wings, had gotten little or no sleep before the flight —because couldn’t find lodgings she could afford— had worked part-time at a coffee-bar to pay her bills, and still lived with her parents. The twenty-four-year-old didn’t exactly inspire confidence.
Nor did the pilot, who similarly couldn’t afford a place to sleep near the airport —a fact which cost him sleep— and reacted incorrectly to the situation, thus killing himself and everyone on board.
These are sad revelations and the kind of brand-damaging material that can take years to fix.
Why?
Whereas Sully was celebrated as a hero, his achievement was seen as the exception, a one-off.
On the other hand, the facts about the Buffalo crash are about the shortcomings of an entire system —shortcomings like low pay, bad management and a dearth of qualified people that can’t be easily fixed, especially in this economy. They also fall under the “revelation,” category meaning they have the power to change the way all of us look at pilots and airlines long-term —much like exposés on the fast food industry result in big shifts in perception. Such revelations make us think that the problem is not only serious but deeply ingrained, permanent.
Certainly, flyers will probably be wondering about the qualifications of the guy or gal in the cockpit for a long time to come.
The additional problem for the airline industry is direct brand damage for the specific airline company involved in this incident.
Continental, which used Colgan as its regional carrier, is quick to make a distinction between the companies now that there’s been a disaster. But most passengers flying on Colgan probably believed they were flying on Continental because of the way ticket purchasing works. The revelation that their well-being was, in fact, subcontracted out will hurt Continental’s brand in the long run.
But other big airlines have similar arrangements. All of them will now be suspect.
From a real marketing perspective, the best response is a direct one by individual airlines. The airlines that don’t sub-contract out will have a natural brand advantage and should emphasize this strength. The ones that do need to evaluate whether they can do without the regional coverage —in other words, drop their affiliations with the regionals and let their Target Markets know that they are focusing on the safety and quality of their brand, specifically the equipment and personnel that they manage directly.
The industry itself should adopt stronger and more comprehensive rules about basic safety and pilot standards, and then let everyone know they are doing this.
And my advice to individual airlines, especially Continental, is to institute a pilot safety program that goes above and beyond industry standards and current training. It might take some doing with the pilots’ unions, but who knows —with all this bad publicity, the union might be very open to such a program. Perhaps some of the money to pay for this could come from a “safety tax” charged per ticket. Now that the horse has fled the barn, there’s no use pretending that we can just assume that our pilots are up to snuff. Consumers will likely embrace any airline that puts the excellence of its pilots first, and they’d rather have their money going to pilot safety than more fuel surcharges. Airlines need to take their current crop of lemons and make lemonade.
Moments like this make you realize how important it is to keep your eye on real marketing at all times. Real marketing is your bottom line.
And remember, it’s always easier when you keep marketing and branding in mind.
TODAY'S TANTILLO TAKEAWAY -
Brands never lose value all at once. They crumble over time as a result of many poor decisions that are never challenged.
That might have something to do with the fact that Sully had a union job with good wages - and the safety training his union demanded. See the difference?
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