India’s newest airline Akasa takes off with a brand promise to ‘simplify’ travel
Akasa Air, the newest airline on the Indian skies, has launched its maiden brand campaign with the tagline ‘It’s your sky’. Co-founder Belson Coutinho shares with The Drum the airline's marketing strategy.
Akasa Air launches its maiden brand campaign
The aviation segment is a tough nut to crack in India and many parts of the world, beset with multiple challenges including but not limited to the heavy dependence on fuel costs, regulatory framework, and seasonal nature of the category. Covid-19 battered the industry, but now it is mounting its resurgence.
In such a tough climate, the arrival of a new airline brand is a newsmaker and that is why the launch of Akasa Air has been creating a buzz with travellers, industry experts and competing airline brands all watching out for the next move and launch of the brand, for different reasons of course.
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Speaking to The Drum, Belson Coutinho, co-founder and chief marketing & experience officer, Akasa Air said: “18 months ago, when we were putting the blueprint of Akasa brand in place, we felt that there was a clear white space for creating an inclusive environment for travellers in India, especially the first-time fliers.”
"Air travel has become a transactional experience and we want to bring the warmth and simplicity back into it, across touchpoints," he adds.
How Akasa is rebooting the travel experience
While there is no silver bullet to change all of it, Akasa's idea is to humanize the travel experience, irrespective of whether the passenger is a frequent flier or a first-timer, Coutinho says.
The rewriting of the travel experience includes introducing the concept of a customer service manager to help all customers, especially the elderly and first-time flyers, simplifying the call centre experience and the website journey for the customer. Consideration has also been put into the in-flight experience, from the comfort of the seating to the menu and the use of sustainable packaging.
Launching a TV-less brand campaign
The campaign interestingly has kept away from television and includes print, out-of-home (OOH), digital and social media in the media plan.
The focus has been kept on identifying the key markets and being locally relevant to the traveller audience there.
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Accordingly, the campaign has a heavy regional leg and will be running in five languages, including Marathi, Kannada, Tamil, Malayalam, and Gujarati.
The campaign hopes to reaffirm and communicate the airline’s proposition of creating a warm, dependable, and affordable air travel experience that is thinking and listening to the customers, says Coutinho.