Global Branding the Emirates Way

Coca-Cola, McDonald, Nokia, and Toyota are some of the world’s most valuable brands; brands that don’t exist for the purpose of winning global popularity contests, but to perform as their respective firms’ greatest assets.

A sampling from the 2005 Business Week/Interbrand ranking of top global brands attributed a brand value of $67 billion to Coca-Cola, $26.4 billion to Nokia, $26 billion to McDonald, and $24.8 billion for Toyota. These recognized valuations substantiate those brands’ abilities in contributing to their firms’ revenues through building customer loyalty, competitive advantages, consistent prices/margins, and effectiveness of marketing programs.

Most corporate giants in the Muslim world are indeed simply in awe of these global brands as well as their capabilities and their strengths. They may attempt branding on regional or local levels, but the process of building such global brands remains a sheer mystery to them. Can you think of any brand from the Muslim World that compares?

There is however one brand that hails from the heart of the Arab World that is beginning to make its mark on the global stage. This exception is the Dubai based and state-owned Emirates Group’s, Emirates airline (#27 on the 2004 DS100 business ranking).

Emirates: An Emerging Global Brand

Emirates is a brand that is truly emerging as a global icon with its logo represented in Arabic script as a symbol of its origin.

Emirates airline is building an operational and service approach of a truly global provider, delivering high quality service and boasting one of the industry’s youngest and most advanced fleet that is winning it loyal customers worldwide.

Today, Emirates flies to 78 destinations in 55 countries with more than 12 million passengers annually. While most of the world’s airlines have spent the past year slashing costs and trimming services, Emirates started eight new major routes in 2004 alone. Last summer, it began its first U.S. flights, to New York City’s J.F.K. airport and it’s already considering as many as nine U.S. destinations.

The airline has received more than 270 accolades and awards globally for all aspects of its business. One of the most notable of these accolades is the Skytrax Airline of the Year award, which is the global barometer of passenger opinions about airlines around the world and is conducted with a truly worldwide audience – comprising more than 94 different respondent nationalities in 2005 with more than 12 million eligible surveys.

In 2005, Emirates was ranked #3 only behind Cathay Pacific and Qantas Airways, surpassing such globally recognized names as Singapore Airlines and British Airways.

All of these accomplishments are backed by a financial soundness that is the envy of the industry. The airline is the fifth-most-profitable airline in the world and has been growing by more than 20% a year for the past 17 years. It posted a record $637 million profit in the 2004-05 financial year-up 49% over the previous year. In the same year its revenue reached an all-time high of $4.9 billion in the same period-up 36%.

The Emirates Way!

So what does it take to build such a global brand, especially from a region where global brands have rarely emerged? Mr. Mike Simon, Senior Vice President, Emirates Corporate Communications tells us how Emirates does it with lessons that hit closer to home for many businesses in the Muslim world.

Before we get to that though, lets just clear away some widely held misconceptions about branding. Branding is not just about having an attractive logo, slogan and mass advertising. Rather, according to Prophet, one of the most recognized branding consultancies with clients such as UBS, BP, VISA, Kellog’s and GE, “A brand is built through deeds more than words – it is how your customers experience what you do.”

H.H. Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Chairman of Emirates

According to David Aakers, one of the founders of Prophet and the worlds most recognized authority on branding, a more specific concept, brand equity, is defined as a “set of brand assets and liabilities linked to a brand, its name and symbol, that add to or subtract from the value provided by a product or service to a firm and/or to that firm’s customers.” This concept and managing to capitalize on the value of a brand name is very systematically elaborated in Mr. Aaker’s best selling book ‘Managing Brand Equity.’

An Organizational Commitment

With that perspective of branding in mind, the first and foremost aspect relating to Emirates’ rise as a global brand is its leadership’s vision and foresight in linking the brand to its business strategy and committing the budgets and resources necessary for its strategic and tactical impact.

According to Mr. Simon, “Emirates places marketing to the forefront and even in these times of cost-cutting in the industry, we do not take the easy way out by slashing corporate communications budgets. Our marketing budget is confidential, but I can tell you that we believe an effective corporate communications budget should be about three to five per cent of the company’s total revenue.”

Maurice Flanagan, Vice Chairman & Group President

Under the leadership of H.H. Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Chairman of Emirates, and Maurice Flanagan, Vice Chairman & Group President, Emirates has built an in-house corporate communications team comprising of nearly 100 professionals. This team that is led by Mr. Mike Simon works with a global network of advertising, media buying and public relations agencies, and their role is to support and implement Emirates marketing activities globally. They have also formed a unique virtual agency network called Empower. This is an extranet that links the more than 120 advertising and PR agencies working with Emirates, and features the best of the world’s creative and communication talent.

Beyond the support of such resources, the leadership has ensured that all aspects of its operations, its cabin service, quality of fleet, logistics management, catering etc. live up to the promise of the brand. This we’ll review later, but first, what is the Emirates brand promise?

Emirates Brand Positioning

According to Mr. Simon, “From day one, Emirates has set out to be an innovative, modern, and customer-oriented provider of high quality air travel services. Our brand positioning is that of a leading, international and quality airline serving the global community.”

Mr. Mike Simon, Senior Vice President, Emirates Corporate Communications Images: Emirates Airlines

In regards to Emirates customer segments, he adds, “Today, air travel is affordable and accessible, and for Emirates the whole world is our oyster. All customers are important to Emirates, and we strive to provide them with the best possible value for their money, regardless of which class passengers travel in. However, we’ve always considered the frequent business traveler – the people who literally “fly to work”- as pivotal to our marketing strategy.”

Emirates Brand Positioning

According to Mr. Simon, “From day one, Emirates has set out to be an innovative, modern, and customer-oriented provider of high quality air travel services. Our brand positioning is that of a leading, international and quality airline serving the global community.”

In regards to Emirates customer segments, he adds, “Today, air travel is affordable and accessible, and for Emirates the whole world is our oyster. All customers are important to Emirates, and we strive to provide them with the best possible value for their money, regardless of which class passengers travel in. However, we’ve always considered the frequent business traveler – the people who literally “fly to work”- as pivotal to our marketing strategy.”

“Emirates has set out to be an innovative, modern, and customer-oriented provider of high quality air travel services.”

Image: Emirates Airlines

Emirates’ won the prestigious Official Airline Guide (OAG) Best Marketing Campaign for its promotion of the start of its services to New York. The campaign included this 180 metre-high image of the Statue of Liberty that was displayed on a 55-storey building in Emirates’ home base of Dubai during the launch period last year.

Living the Brand

Given the aspirations of the Emirates brand in being global, innovative, and a customer-oriented provider of high quality services, the key to its success has been Emirates airlines ability to apply the brand in all aspects of its customer interactions.

“From the service provided at the point of ticket purchase to staff at the check-in counter; from facilities offered in our airport lounges to in-flight entertainment and service. At all customer touchpoints, Emirates pays close attention to our product and service to ensure that we deliver on our brand promise of innovation and quality.”

Mr. Simon further adds, “We operate a fleet of modern, wide-bodied aircraft and equip these aircraft with the latest in-flight amenities and entertainment systems; we invest in the latest technologies to enable faster and more efficient handling of such functions as ticketing, baggage and cargo handling; we recruit our award-winning cabin crew from over 100 countries around the world and train them to the highest standards – so you can be sure there will be someone who speaks your language onboard; we hire gourmet chefs to design and plan our inflight catering menus; we invest millions of dollars to provide advanced engineering support for one of the world’s youngest fleet of aircraft; and the list goes on across the airline’s business units.”

Sponsorships:

The Cornerstone of Emirates Marketing Strategy

Emirates branding employs all the major traditional and new marketing tools, but the medium that has helped it to connect with its customers and enhance its brand awareness the fastest is major sporting event sponsorships.

As Mr. Simon puts it, “When we launch a new route we don’t just go there with an advertising blitz to promote our products and services. We put together a comprehensive campaign that builds our credentials as a corporate citizen and truly promotes local social, cultural and community events. Hand in hand with our advertising and PR campaigns, Emirates chooses to sponsor events, teams or activities which attract worldwide television coverage. Our research shows that by selecting the correct sponsorships, we have been able to take quantum leaps in the promotion of our brand awareness in new markets.”

Emirates began its sponsorship activities in 1987, two years after it was established, and now has a long history of supporting sporting events around the world that includes major events in football, horse racing, yacht racing, rugby, golf, cricket and tennis.

The highlight of these sponsorship deals is its English football club sponsorship in October 2004 with the legendary Arsenal Football Club worth some £100 million. It is the biggest deal in English football history providing the airline with naming rights to the club’s new £357 million stadium, which for the next 15 years will be known as Emirates Stadium. The team will also wear the Fly Emirates shirt for eight years.

Challenges for Emirates as an Emerging Global Brand

As one of the world’s fastest growing airlines, Emirates’ biggest challenge is ensuring that its brand continues to be relevant and is consistently adopted throughout the organisation. “If you pitch yourself as an innovative airline that always offers state-of-the-art, then this is a challenge that keeps you on your toes. We are that airline and our targets are always located at new unexplored horizons.” Says Mr. Simon.

Mr. Sunil Varughese, of the Dubai based branding consultancy, Brand Indigo LLC, acknowledges that Emirates has built-up enviable levels of brand saliency among its target audience. However he cautions that, “High levels of brand recall concurrently raise the expectation levels of customers. In this internet era, post-travel dissonance is discussed in chat rooms and blogs by dissatisfied customers and may quickly erode carefully built brand esteem. Service recovery plans will have to be in put in place in quick earnest, or else customer franchise maybe negatively affected.”

“If you pitch yourself as an innovative airline that always offers state-of-the-art, then this is a challenge that keeps you on your toes.”

He notes that, “Only a month ago, it was reported in a Dubai based tabloid that a senior official at Emirates Airlines, had sent an internal circular stating, ‘we have been receiving more and more reports that our service levels are slipping’”. Perhaps the drop in Emirates Skytrax Airline of the Year ranking from #1 in 2001 and 2002, and #2 in 2004, to #3 in 2005 is of concern?

The second challenge facing Emirates deals with negative perceptions surrounding the Arab World. Mr. Varghese brushes off this concern by saying that, “today, even Brand America is facing a lot of flak. Yet, most brands originating from the USA are considered global brands and even consumers who have a differing value system from that of Brand America are seen to consume ostensibly American brands without any qualms. McDonalds, Coke, and Pepsi are mega brands in the Middle East. Having said that, Emirates is primarily a service brand and its employees can prove to be memorable brand ambassadors for the region by exemplifying the region’s intrinsic culture of hospitality. A delightful brand experience by customers of the brand can also result in positive word-of-mouth thereby ameliorating negative perceptions of the region.”

Finally, there’s something to be said about the strength or weakness of the name ‘Emirates’ as a brand itself. Since the millions being spent in building the brand associations are all tied to the one brand name and its symbol, the longevity of the brand name and its extensions are critical to assess.

Mr. Naseem Javed, founder of a corporate naming consultancy, ABC Namebank, points out that, “As a rule, naming a brand after a particular geography puts serious limits on global branding and marketing. As we are becoming more inter-active, geographical limitations inhibit our purchase decisions and places our imagination in a box full of preconceived ideas and notions related to that particular name of a city, country or a region.” He does say that exceptions do exist and that because of Emirates’ great service they have acquired a great reputation and for this reason it is a distinct possiblilty for their name to become a big global brand. However, he does caution that the generic use of the word Emirates, used by the thousands of other non-related businesses as part of the public domain will always be a serious issue.

Looking Ahead

All of the above challenges are growing pains and hurdles that Emirates has been able to master before and there is no reason to imagine it will not continue to. If the future of Emirates is in any doubt, then consider the fact that it has more than $26 billion worth of new airplanes on order, including being the world’s first and largest buyer of the new ‘super jumbo’ Airbus A380 having placed an order for 45.

If anything, the world should expect to hear more about Emirates, and its name on the top 100 Business Week/Interbrand Global Brands list is surely not that far off.