AIR INDIA

Place and Promotion Mix Analysis

September 30, 2011 Submitted by: AVIN SETH 11BSPHH010206 Section-H Seat no: 26

AIR INDIA
After the discussion of the two Ps:- Pricing and Product mix we move ahead towards the discussion of Promotion and Place mix of Air India. Promotion Mix The specific blend of communication tools that the company uses to communicate customer value and customer relationships is called a promotion mix or marketing communication mix. Five major promotion tools are:Advertising Sales Promotion Personal Selling Public Relations A paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods and services by an identified sponsor. Short term incentives to increase the purchase or sale of a product or service. Personal presentation by the firms sales force for the purpose of making sales and building customer relationships. Building good relations with the companys publics by obtaining favourable publicity, building up a good corporate image and handling or heading off unfavourable rumors, stories and events. Direct connections with carefully targeted individual customers to both obtain an immediate response and cultivate lasting customer relationships.

Direct Marketing

Sales promotion by Air India Business class LTC Executive Scheme All the Government Employees with their family dependent family members are eligible for Leave Travel Concession (LTC) effective from 7th June, 2009 in Air India. Air India provides free travel to some class of Free service for Govt. Employees and Air Govt. Employees and Air India Employees or India employees normal basis. Other Govt. and Air India Employees enjoy discounted rates while traveling through Air India. One example is the Corporate AAA+ Scheme. Under this scheme 10% discount will be offered on the base fare of class D and Y to Govt. Of India officials on their duty travel, 15% discount on base fare when travelling on vacation alone or with family. CORPORATE SUPER SAVER with 12 Offered from 27th Aug, 2010 till 31st Dec,2010 It provided Corporate Houses and Companies Coupons with 12 Coupons on all Domestic flights in both economy and executive class. Armed Forces and Associated Personnel Air India provides concession of 50% to the personnel belonging to Indian Army, navy and air Discount force for the economy class. 76% for recipients of Bravery Award, 75% for war disabled officers and war widows and 50% for the paramilitary forces. Air India offers 50% discount to the cancer Discounts offered on Humanitarian Grounds patients, blind people and people with locomotor disability of 80% and above. It also offers 50% concession to the senior

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citizens, students and people with Arjuna Award. Civilians with Gallantry Award get a 75% concession and sports person participating in National Sports events are offered a 25% discount by Air India.

Besides these regular offers many other promotional offers are provided now and then by Air India like travel 7 times by Air India and get an Economy class return award ticket to any destination on Air India Domestic network excluding Delhi. Similar promotion offers keep on flashing on online booking sites or such offers are available with the travel agents. All the above offers come under sales promotion as all these offers are methods to attract the customers by providing discounts or other similar options. Air India also promoted the airlines by the means of Advertising. They used advertising to reach out to the market and to say Thank you to the community. They made use of a bowing Maharaja as their official Mascot to show their gratitude to the public and invite them to the airlines for a kingly experience. Place Mix Online ticketing Portal Air India Website, Other online ticketing sites like makemytrip.com, yatra.com, travelguru.com etc. 24*7 ticket booking counters at Airports Flight booking by the Travel Agents having access to the Air India flight booking.

Physical Ticketing Counters Travel Agents

As far as accessibility is concerned AI has a limited Domestic Spectrum i.e. AI links only a limited domestic regions. Bug Identification The sales promotion offers provided by Air India are constrained or limited in some sense i.e. these offers are mainly for the Govt. officers or for Armed forces only. Air India also doesnt have a PR. There is no one to handle personal relations for Air India. It is pretty evident from the fact that there has been no one to handle the rumours that spread about Air India so far till now. AI is lagging behind in the customer services. Bug Rectification They should extend their promotional offers and strategies for the civilians also, not in the form of discounts or concessions but by providing more and extra services like: Timely departure and arrival of flights A wider spectrum of domestic flights i.e. increases the domestic links as Air India is limited to only a few domestic cities and not all over India.

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 Give more incentives to the customers and create opportunities for new tours and travel packages. Air Indias promotional strategy should focus more on understanding of customer benefits and should translate those benefits into meaningful product and services. Air India should get more and more customer insights, and focus on improving its brand value. Air India can come up with promotional offers for the people who travel frequently. These could be like offering free in-flight catering to the regular or frequent passengers. Air India should also look into its personal relations. There should be a person appointed to handle the personal relations for the company so that there should be someone to handle all the rumours, and build good relations with the company publics. Air India in Social Media Air India entered into the race for social media with a clear view of generating at least 30% revenues as a ROI. Air India looks forward at social networking sites as a new distribution platform. Traditional travel agents and other online websites will stay intact with this new mode of promotion. Air India is looking forward to have a corporate account on Facebook where customers can book the tickets and can also check their flight status. Air India will be also having a corporate blog on Twitter that will provide AI with regular feedback from the customers. Social media is important not only for the people but for the companies as well. Companys main aim is to cater to the needs of the people and gain customer satisfaction. Through social media i.e. through the social networking sites the companies come closer to the public and come to know about its shortcomings as well as good points, and this makes them possible to make changes so as to improve customer level of satisfaction. Thus through social media AI can improve its services and provide and thus come out of losses by increasing their customer base. Social Media includes a number of social networking sites. The most prevalent of these are: -

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Air Indias Social Media Index in comparison to its competitors:-

It is clear that Jet Airways is more into social media with high interactivity level and greater number of channels followed by Spicejet, kingfisher, AI, Indigo and Go Air. So AI need to improve its social media index and should be more customer centric and more focused on customer needs.

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Corporate Social Responsibility Air India in collaboration with The Tribune, has instituted awards to recognize excellence and to promote the concept of towards responsible and active citizenship for the students and teachers of Punjab, Haryana, HP and Chandigarh and some selected students and teachers were sponsored by Air India to travel to Singapore. Air India along with Malayala Manorama promoted the RANK awards for the students and BOLT awards for the teachers. These were not academic awards, but required both teachers and students to go outside and get the knowledge and look at the world with a better perspective. Through its publications, bids were invited from every district of Kerala. Renowned personalities judged the bids; awards were announced by CM of Kerala, Mr. A.K.Antony. Air India received a Special category award in the field of CSR by the Galileo Travel World Awards 2006. CSR initiatives were in areas of environmental conservation, Social Welfare, education and community development among others.

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