As Virgin Atlantic, founded by Sir Richard Branson celebrates its 25th Anniversary in the worst downturn for half a century. It would like a merger with its short-haul rival BMI, recently bought by German airline Lufthansa. At the same time it is slashing its prices in a sales drive to encourage travellers amidst lower demand. Steve Ridgway who has quietly headed Virgin Atlantic for the last 10 years met his friend and mentor Branson on the Virgin Challenger, atlantic by boat record in the 1980’s. Ridgway, a former teacher turned boat builder was the project manager. Branson sponsored the race to get some much needed publicity for his new airline, launched with just one leased plane.
Twenty five years later, Virgin Atlantic now has a fleet of 38, flying 30 regular long haul routes to America, Africa, India and the Caribbean. Despite Ridgways non aviation background his adept organisaton and marketing have allowed the airline to punch above its weight with a service that is aimed at a younger business audience than its rival BA.
Ridgway has a tough job on his hands in the near future steering Virgin Atlantic through these torrid times in the worldwide economic market. It is a privately owned, medium sized long haul airline and its main competitor is the National carrier.
It was in profit last year on about £2.9 billion of sales, but could slump into the red in 2009. It has already postponed orders for new planes and last week launched a 40% -off sale on Upper class tickets. Without losing valuable slots at Heathrow or cutting the daily service to destinations it is hard to see where Virgin Atlantic can cut costs. In an interview with the Sunday Times Ridgway stated ‘We’ve done a lot already, cutting capacity and frequency, and we are a pretty efficient organisation, with none of the legacy costs of the old flag carriers. Our routes are profitable, we’ve got cash in the bank, no debts, our aircraft are leased – it’s a great place to be.’
He went onto say ‘I think we will stay profitable unless we see a much sharper downturn. We held our traffic until November, now its falling behind, but it’s not huge and we’re watching it carefully.’
As much of the airline industry looks to consolidate it will be interesting to see whether Virgin Atlantic will weather the storm, with other factors such as oil prices, falling sterling and the third runway at Heathrow all impacting the future. Ridgway remains confident saying ‘We’ll recover. If we have to slow down, we will, but we will grow again. Sure as eggs is eggs.’
I’m sure they will as their marketing has an ability to continually capture their target audience.
Monday, 19 January 2009
VAUXHALL STOPS FREE BSM CARS
Vauxhall is currently is discussions with British School of Motoring (BSM) in order to renegotiate of its supply agreement to the UK’s largest driving school to pay for cars it currently gets free of charge.
The talks threaten to thwart the planned sale of BSM by its parent company Aviva. Although Aviva has never confirmed BSM is for sale it has solicited a number of bids for the business which have now stalled while the car supply agreement is renegotiated.
For several years Vauxhall has supplied BSM with a 3500 fleet of the Corsa and Astra models for learners to practise in order to market them to young drivers. The driving school didn’t pay for the cars and after six months they would be sold onto the second hand market. Vauxhalls owners, the struggling US car giant General Motors decided several months ago that this arrangement was no longer viable and are now trying to get BSM to pay for the fleet costing several million pounds.
BSM have tried to find an alternative supplier, but other motor manufacturers are unwilling to take on the contract.
It will be interesting to see how this affects the dominance of BSM in the future and questionable as to whether this form of marketing was ever as successful as Vauxhall hoped with a view to encouraging young customers to the brand.
To discuss your brand requirements, call the Malitia UK team on 0845 224 6386.
The talks threaten to thwart the planned sale of BSM by its parent company Aviva. Although Aviva has never confirmed BSM is for sale it has solicited a number of bids for the business which have now stalled while the car supply agreement is renegotiated.
For several years Vauxhall has supplied BSM with a 3500 fleet of the Corsa and Astra models for learners to practise in order to market them to young drivers. The driving school didn’t pay for the cars and after six months they would be sold onto the second hand market. Vauxhalls owners, the struggling US car giant General Motors decided several months ago that this arrangement was no longer viable and are now trying to get BSM to pay for the fleet costing several million pounds.
BSM have tried to find an alternative supplier, but other motor manufacturers are unwilling to take on the contract.
It will be interesting to see how this affects the dominance of BSM in the future and questionable as to whether this form of marketing was ever as successful as Vauxhall hoped with a view to encouraging young customers to the brand.
To discuss your brand requirements, call the Malitia UK team on 0845 224 6386.
Friday, 14 November 2008
Get your marketing services in a 'box'. malitiabox.com is now launched!
Following the recent successful launch of our new marketing agency, www.malitia.co.uk, we are delighted to report the launch of our newest service, www.malitiabox.com. The concept has been one which has taken Creative Lead Sean Hickey many years to develop. 'Although the 'box' of services concept has been used before, we have tried to adapt this to our own field of marketing. When a client wishes to start a new business or requires assistance with campaigns, they would have previously had to instruct our full agency service Malitia, or similar, and sometimes commit to a much higher cost or longer term commitment than they require'.
'Hence (www.malitiabox.com) Malitia Box was born. Here anyone can purchase affordable set services from our design and marketing team. Although the contents of the box are set, the work itself is 100% bespoke'.
To experience this new service and find out about the exclusive new free marketing download area, visit www.malitiabox.com.
Free marketing advice from MalitiaBox.com
To celebrate the launch of their new ‘marketing in a box’ Website, Malitia have launched a special download centre on www.malitiabox.com, in order to provide free advice on marketing and bring the latest marketing news.
Creative Lead at Malitia says, ‘We are really delighted to launch our new service to the www and we hope that people utilise the new free marketing advice service. New advice notes, news items and tutorials will be added frequently. All you have to do is go to our Website http://www.malitiabox.com/ and click on downloads. Then enter your email to sign up for the download service. We take an email address as an indication of what is happening out there and whether or not people are interested enough to sign up. The email addresses will only be used to inform members of the latest postings. We are committed to never selling or passing database information'.
If there are particular subjects you want to read about, you can send your comments and suggestions to the Malitia team, office@malitiauk.com. Malitia Box is a new service from the recently launched marketing agency, Malitia. It will be providing 'boxed' products and services which contain set types of products, at excellent prices. However, every single piece of work will be 100% bespoke. The team at Malitia pride themselves on this.
Creative Lead at Malitia says, ‘We are really delighted to launch our new service to the www and we hope that people utilise the new free marketing advice service. New advice notes, news items and tutorials will be added frequently. All you have to do is go to our Website http://www.malitiabox.com/ and click on downloads. Then enter your email to sign up for the download service. We take an email address as an indication of what is happening out there and whether or not people are interested enough to sign up. The email addresses will only be used to inform members of the latest postings. We are committed to never selling or passing database information'.
If there are particular subjects you want to read about, you can send your comments and suggestions to the Malitia team, office@malitiauk.com. Malitia Box is a new service from the recently launched marketing agency, Malitia. It will be providing 'boxed' products and services which contain set types of products, at excellent prices. However, every single piece of work will be 100% bespoke. The team at Malitia pride themselves on this.
Thursday, 13 November 2008
Deploy Malitia marketing tactics to enhance your business success
In tough times, your business needs tough marketing with results in mind. Malitia marketing campaigns mean strategies which are designed to have a high impact and deliver tangible results in the form of financial income to your business.
Examples of this form of marketing can be:
Restaurant Seat Filling
Street events such as food tasting and ‘meet the chef’ can a hugely positive impact on covers for a number of weeks. This type of event, if run correctly can have a truly massive impact on the reputation of the restaurant and as you spread the network of events through local towns, your repeat eater levels will inevitably increase. To find out more about this type of strategy and how it can be tailored to your business, view our Website www.malitia.co.uk or email us sean@malitiauk.com.
‘Follow the crumbs’
This is an ideal type of campaign strategy for retail businesses. The basic idea is to increase levels of foot traffic to your outlet. This can be achieved through bubble machines, foot step graphics or even the shoppers themselves. Malitia marketing means marketing to the end user when they do not know they are being marketed to. Having a problem to solve or puzzle to follow can be an exciting way of engaging your clients. You do not need to offer prizes or gimmicks, simply add a little spice and excitement. To find out more about this type of strategy and how it can be tailored to your business, view our Website www.malitia.co.uk or email us sean@malitiauk.com.
Car Dealerships
This is an industry which is in real trouble right now, with pressures from every angle dramatically reducing sales figures. Interestingly, most of the pressures are not of the dealers own making and therefore, price has started to become king. Malitia campaigns can help here too. Using innovative campaigning such as cardboard cut outs in car parks and town centre balloon events, you can ensure that the limited audience out there comes to your dealership and no one elses! To find out more about this type of strategy and how it can be tailored to your business, view our Website www.malitia.co.uk or email us sean@malitiauk.com.
These are just three examples of industry specific Malitia campaigns. We work closely with our client to find marketing which speaks specifically to your existing and future clients in a bespoke and individual way.
Marketing + Militia = Malitia. To find out more, visit our Website or contact sean@malitiauk.com, 0845 224 6386.
Examples of this form of marketing can be:
Restaurant Seat Filling
Street events such as food tasting and ‘meet the chef’ can a hugely positive impact on covers for a number of weeks. This type of event, if run correctly can have a truly massive impact on the reputation of the restaurant and as you spread the network of events through local towns, your repeat eater levels will inevitably increase. To find out more about this type of strategy and how it can be tailored to your business, view our Website www.malitia.co.uk or email us sean@malitiauk.com.
‘Follow the crumbs’
This is an ideal type of campaign strategy for retail businesses. The basic idea is to increase levels of foot traffic to your outlet. This can be achieved through bubble machines, foot step graphics or even the shoppers themselves. Malitia marketing means marketing to the end user when they do not know they are being marketed to. Having a problem to solve or puzzle to follow can be an exciting way of engaging your clients. You do not need to offer prizes or gimmicks, simply add a little spice and excitement. To find out more about this type of strategy and how it can be tailored to your business, view our Website www.malitia.co.uk or email us sean@malitiauk.com.
Car Dealerships
This is an industry which is in real trouble right now, with pressures from every angle dramatically reducing sales figures. Interestingly, most of the pressures are not of the dealers own making and therefore, price has started to become king. Malitia campaigns can help here too. Using innovative campaigning such as cardboard cut outs in car parks and town centre balloon events, you can ensure that the limited audience out there comes to your dealership and no one elses! To find out more about this type of strategy and how it can be tailored to your business, view our Website www.malitia.co.uk or email us sean@malitiauk.com.
These are just three examples of industry specific Malitia campaigns. We work closely with our client to find marketing which speaks specifically to your existing and future clients in a bespoke and individual way.
Marketing + Militia = Malitia. To find out more, visit our Website or contact sean@malitiauk.com, 0845 224 6386.
Thursday, 6 November 2008
Hilton Hotels to Brand a London Hotel with the Luxurious Waldorf Astoria name
International hotel chain Hilton is to take on two upmarket London properties previously branded by Kemplinski, the German Hotelier which withdrew from the properties earlier this year. One of which, the 64 room Bentley in Knightsbridge will be badged as a Waldorf Astoria, only the second of Hiltons brand synonymous with Luxury to open in Europe after Rome. The original stunningly situated overlooking Central Park in New York. The other hotel, The Courthouse situated in the West End will be changed to a Doubletree, another of the Hilton’s main brands, although well know in the US it has a relatively small presence elsewhere in the world. Both the hotels have been branded under a franchise arrangement and will continue to be run by India’s Sanger family. Hilton which is owned by Blackstone has a number of brands including Doubletree and Hampton Inn and is working to expand these brands around the world including the UK converting existing hotels and looking for opportunities to build new properties.
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