Fly Dubai Communication Mix - Marketing Essay Example

With the vision and courage of the people of Dubai, Fly Dubai was launched in 2009. In two years, Fly Dubai was able to achieve a 200% increase in its passengers, 100% increase in aircrafts, 785 increases in the number of flights, and 150% increase in the number of routes. This report explores Fly Dubais current communication mix, identifies the target markets, and provides justifications for a new and improved communication mix. The report also includes a 12-month Communication mix implementation plan. In the Aviation industry, Fly Dubai has been able to carve out a brand name for itself through reliable and distinctive services.

Current Communication Mix

Product in the Communication mix of Fly Dubai

Fly Dubai has a mixed fleet in their portfolio for instance Airbuses and Boeing wide-body aircraft. Moreover, Fly Dubai strives to maintain a highly competitive streak in the aviation industry and has ordered the biggest airplanes to date. Products provided by Fly Dubai include excellent and consistent services and an s a result, the company has been able to achieve rapid growth and maintained its revenues. Fly Dubai supplies personalized videos in most of its customers. Personalized videos are available for customers in first class, business class, and Economic class. For passengers who would like to use comfortable seats, passengers in first class can convert their seats into flat beds; have storage facilities for privacy and security reasons, minibar, and private suites. Most of the seats in the economy class comprise of the winged headrest, USB Ports. Business class customers can enjoy seats with massage options and sockets for laptops.

Place in the Communication Mix of Fly Dubai

All operations of Fly Dubai are managed from the Dubai airport. The company operates more than 2000 flights on a weekly basis. It has a global network that is spread through five continents. In order to occupy the position of being Dubais main tourism carrier, Fly Dubai has used its strategic hub locations to maximize its benefits. The strategic position of Dubai means that Fly Dubai can act as a stopover for strategic routes that ling the west and the east resulting in direct flights. Additionally, Fly Dubai has also introduced many new flight routes that are both advantageous to the passengers and the company. Fly Dubai can penetrate new markets due to its increasing size of fleets (Kumar and Steenkamp, 2013).

Price in the Communication Mix of Fly Dubai

From its inception, Fly Dubai was set out to make travel less complex, less stressful and less expensive. Fly Dubai uses a low-cost business model. Additionally, the company offers a value for money product at the extremely competitive price. In its low-cost business model, Fly Dubai is able to eliminate the difficulty of travel through reduced operating costs in the bid to provide lower fares to their customers. Additionally, Fly Dubai utilizes a system of Pay to Change fare whereby each customer is given the privilege to make alterations to their bookings or cancel 24 hours before the flight a fee. Moreover, customers can only pay for what they need. The dynamic management of seat capacity on every aircraft enables the airline to get the best price for the seats available.

Promotion in the Communication Mix of Fly Dubai

Fly Dubai launched a promotional strategy for its airlines that is completive in nature. The company has a vision of building and maintaining a leadership position in Dubai and in the Middle East in general. As a result, the company has taken calculated risks that ensures that it does not hamper it's excellent and above par services. Fly Dubai also believes that by offering discounts on airfares at offseasons, it would be able to garner more passages. The company utilizes both modern and traditional marketing strategies. In the bid to reach a wider target audience, the company has placed advertisements in magazines, radios, billboards, television and on their website. Fly Dubai also sponsors certain sports events such as Dubai Classics.

Fly Dubai is a good example of a firm that uses various kinds of communication in its promotional activities. From a promotional perspective, Fly Dubais marketing communication mix is observable in the market via various advertisements and other activities. Fly Dubais marketing mix is efficient and effective in that it offers a balance between the attraction of new customers and keeping the existing customers.

Advertising Fly Dubais Products

In advertising, Fly Dubais main objective is to reach large populations of target customers with the intention of getting their services. Fly Dubai has set up various advertising strategies through television, web-based advertisements, and radio so as to promote the brand to customers and improve their perception of the firm. It is imperative to comprehend that advertising is typically costly. If Fly Dubais advertising strategy is implemented, then the company can reap the rewards of a brand image that is stronger and an increased demand for its products.

Additionally, Fly Dubai utilizes celebrities to represent the user or ideal customer of the companys products. Some of the advertisements are done by highly popular personalities such as movie celebrities and athletes. By using various celebrities in advertising products, Fly Dubai ensures that it promotes its products by motivating the potential customers to mimic how these celebrities prefer to use Fly Dubai (Kotler & Armstrong, 2010).

Target markets

When most people think of low-cost air travel, the images that they often conjure are those of busy cabins, crowded buses ahead of boarding, and obscure-out-of-town airports. These images are not well suited for the target market of Fly Dubai. Fly Dubai targets business class services for different routes. The seats are bigger and have specialized cabin crew. The increase in targeting business class customers who use low budget aircraft travel is as a result of the increase in demand from customers for a premium service especially on routes that have previously not been served.

Recommendations

The recommended marketing communication mix for Fly Dubai in the next 12 months of the year should be the following:

January and February

During this period, airfares are generally high in the Middle East as it is the most awaited months of the years. Many individuals normally go for vacations. It is vital that Fly Dubai ensures that it increases the intensity of sales promotions. Various Fly Dubai adverts should be displayed in areas where the airline currently serves. In the bid to attract more customers, fly Dubai should ensure that it placed billboards in famous areas. There are various incentives that customers can be provided with such as premium coupons. This would enable Fly Dubai to build stronger relationships and increase customer loyalty.

March-April

Fly Dubai should ensure that it allows its customers to have face to face meetings with the airlines representatives. This would allow the representatives to assists customers choose their place of vacation. This period is normally synonymous with vacation travelers. Some of the couples who travel during this time could be selected for promotions such as free romantic stays in hotels. The best strategy that could be implemented during this period is personal selling. Social media can be used to upscale or make awareness of romantic getaways that customers could win on their flights.

May-June

During this period, many students who study abroad often pack their bags and head home. Students are normally attracted by low fares. Moreover, being a summer break, fly Dubai has a great opportunity to approach its targeted customers. Fly Dubai should ensure that they provide complimentary or free event tickets when individuals book packages, or every air ticket. Fly Dubai should also ensure that it aligns or partners itself with events or companies that sponsor events. For consumer promotion, social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook should be used.

July-August

During these months, Fly Dubai should consider implementing a guerilla marketing strategy. This marketing strategy has been used by other airlines in the Middle East such as Emirates Airlines. The strategy is geared towards promoting products and services for individuals who have budgets that are tight who normally spend in an unconventional way. Fly Dubai could target the emotional aspects of consumers by ensuring that they make them feel valuable. A specific special offer of low airfares could be offered to students traveling back to school.

September-October

In order to lure in more customers to Dubai, Fly Dubai could provide inexpensive, attractive packages. This could be done through televisions, radios, magazines, banners. Big sources of advertising should be considered.

November-December

These are the months that many people choose to take vacations and holidays. In the Middle East, the weather is the hottest, and many areas are crowded. Many airlines during this period normally increase their fares. Fly Dubai should cater for families traveling to Dubai particularly for tourism and vacation purposes. Some of the promotional strategies that could be implemented could include Family Free, a concept where parents would win free holidays, and vacations.

There is a need for Fly Dubai to ensure that it vastly spreads awareness regarding the offer that they are providing (OConnell, 2011). This would ensure that consumers are triggered to travel to areas that they have not yet traveled before. The experience that the new customers would have would be unrivaled and thus buy new offers. Online marketing campaigns can be launched so as to build tighter relationships between fly Dubai and its customers.

Communication mix implementation plan

For a marketing communication plan strategy to be successful, there is need to ensure that there is a clear understanding of the target market and in particular the needs and the expectations of the customers (Butler et al., 2007)

The first strategy that Fly Dubai could utilize is ensuring that all their products and services meet the expectation and demand for their products. This would ensure that customers stay loyal to the company in future.

Secondly, Fly Dubai should integrate various components of the marketing mix, and this should be done with utmost care. If some of the products are advertised on one platform, then it is the responsibility of the marketing team at Fly Dubai to ensure that the same information provided in the advertisements is available on the companys website, hoarding, banners that are then displayed on strategic places.

Fly Dubai should make sure that its products are promoted simultaneously at multiple places. The marketing tactics that have been used in isolation should be coordinated so that it works in unison. The different communication platforms should send the same message to the end customers (Stephens Balakrishnan, 2008).

Fly Dubai Brand promotional activities should be done not only for the sake of it but to target specific clients. It is the responsibility of every individual working for Fly Dubai or any person who is directly associated with the company . There must be interdepartmental cooperation so that individuals can work in unison and brainstorm ideas to solve unique situations.

Employees will have to improve their communication skills so as to ensure that information need reaches its desired form. All the employees who are associated with Fly Dubai should have access to all the relevant information that is related to promotion, advertising, and marketing.

The channels that achieve better results in the target market such as the use of social media and television advertisement in sporting events should be bolster...