Airline Branding Whitepaper

Selected and published by Interbrand’s Brandchannel.com as the featured white paper in Summer 2008, this white paper entitled “Six steps to building a swashbuckling airline brand” introduces a new model for deriving an airline’s brand value and then goes on to discuss ways to enhance it. The airline industry is unique. It is cyclical in nature, incurs high-fixed costs, there are uncertainties due to heavy dependency on other fluctuating factors like oil prices and has a length of engagement with the customer that is not common in other industries. An ideal branding model for the airlines would take into account both the realities of business and the nature of the industry. The 6X branding model helps guide an airline’s branding approach by focusing on six key levers: Brand Xpectation, Brand Xperience, Brand Xpression, Brand Xternalities, Brand Xtensibility and Brand X-Factor.