Ch. 16 - Advertising, Public Relations and Sales Promotion

Institutional advertising and pioneering advertising are Deltas main type of advertising strategies. They look to maintain their image as among the top airlines in the world in addition to adding new services like Delta One. The most popular use of promotional techniques are in: TV, magazines and the internet. Delta not only recently hired Omnicom's PHD to Handle U.S. Media Business but spent $53 million in domestic measured media in 2015, which is about the same amount the company spent in 2014, according to Kantar Media. Delta has begun to embark on a new advertising campaign, “Keep Climbing” and the most recent “Tell the World”.

Ch. 14- Marketing Channels and Retailing

Delta uses online retailing because majority of its costumers either buy their ticket from the web or mobile device. Delta SkyMiles program lets you earn miles by shopping with their American Express credit card and purchasing items from one of their retail partnerships. By having these exclusive partnerships with only certain retailors and restaurants Delta created a strategic retailing mix. The incentive for Delta costumers is that the more you shop at these retailors the more miles you get on Delta Airlines. As airlines become increasingly dependent upon selling ancillaries to attain profitability, the natural progression in the merchandising maturity model is for airlines to think, act and sell like a retailer to drive revenue improvements while enhancing the customer experience.

Ch. 6-Consumer Decision Making

In order for Delta to keep its competitive edge, they have to understand and research the wants and needs of not only their customers but also how to acquire new ones. Delta Air Lines states that their superior customer service and relationships allows them to beat competitors. One of the ways Delta understands customers is by taking employee and customer surveys seriously, and then responding with action plans to always improve employee satisfaction and engagement.  Another way Delta enhances their value is by reading over numbers, reports and metrics. Without looking over the data that is relevant to their business, changes cannot be made.

Airline traveler’s value: on-time flight arrivals, cancellation avoidance, baggage handling and customer service. Delta Air Lines is away are the needs that travelers demand from an airline and are constantly improving upon each value. For the second year in a row now, Delta has both the third-highest on-time arrival rate at 85.9 percent and the third-lowest number of mishandled bags at 2.08 per 1,000 passengers each month.

Ch. 2- Strategic Planning for Competitive Advantage

Delta Air lines, as everyone knows it to be, is one of the largest airline carriers in the world but many of their travelers don’t utilize their amenities that Delta strongly markets and rewards their customers for flying with them. SkyMiles, SkyClubs and Skybonus are three of Delta Airlines subgroups along with their largest SBU, Delta’s Oil refinery.

SkyMiles is a frequent flyer program for Delta Airlines. They are credit cards from American Express that allow the travelers to obtain benefits for flying with them. No foreign transaction fees for customers from American Express when using SkyMiles, also priority boarding, first checked bag free and earning money from purchasing made directly with Delta. Delta has marketed this program as ‘exclusive’ so that their passengers not only maintain long-term commitment for using their airlines and receiving benefits mentioned above. SkyClubs and Skybonus all use the same marketing strategy to maintain loyalty from not only the single passenger but Skybonus for businesses using frequent airline travel and their well known exclusive membership only Delta SkyClub. All three subgroups have some connection to American Express credit cards.

Delta Air Lines most recent move was acquiring an oil refinery that was on the verge of closing permanently. No other airline owns a refinery, in 2012 Delta Air Lines was the first to do something like this in the industry; again proving that Delta is consistently innovative. This idea initially puzzled many experts in the field because of the investment of 100 million to a failing oil refinery. Delta told investors that refinery would help reduce its annual fuel expense by $300 million. Initially, Delta’s critics were right, Monroe Energy (Deltas subsidiary) was failing in 2012. Looking at present day, Delta has yet to meet any of the margins they have hoped for when initially acquiring investors and made a statement in April 2016 that they hope to break even.

Ch. 5 Developing a Global Vision

Delta Airlines has developed a global vision for themselves and continues to be as innovative as possible within their multinational corporation. The airline is a founding member of the SkyTeam global alliance and participates in the industry’s leading trans-atlantic venture with Air France-KLM and Alitalia as well as a joint venture with Virgin Atlantic. Including its worldwide alliance partners, Delta offers customers more than 15,000 daily flights with 20 different airline carriers. 

The airline strives for creating one product, one message. By developing a single product, Delta Airlines market their company to people world wide the same way regardless of race or ethnicity. They do however, offer perks from flying that does appeal to different people, such as the Delta Lounge or their Delta rewards card. Unlike other products or services, airline travel is an industry that market experts don't foresee a decline in, on the contrary airline travel is expected to grow annually by 2.5%.  

Delta Airlines does not need to make product adaptions based on its location because their product is solely their airlines. It has been shown that people who use airline travel have the same expectations as others in different locations, like safety, reliability and cabin space. All other external factors such as the type of passengers that fly Delta would be out of the airlines control. 

Apart of their global vision Delta Airlines in 2015 made a $450 million dollar investment that connects two complimentary networks (Delta and China Eastern). This move marks a significant step in the airlines’ collaboration and partnership that will allow Delta and China Eastern to compete more effectively on routes between the U.S. and China, provide more travel options for customers in both countries and make joint investments in the customer experience. The chairman for China Eastern spoke about the partnership, “The cooperation between China Eastern and Delta is a strategic cooperation between two excellent airlines which connect the world’s two top economies as well as two top air transportation markets.  We’re fully confident in the prospect of the cooperation,” said Shaoyong Liu, the Chairman of China Eastern.