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American Airlines Brand Stumbles
7 Nov2009
The branding and marketing department at American Airlines is cringing right now. They relied on their vendor to ensure that the American Airlines brand was protected. Whoops!
You may remember my friend that had the great experience with the Cathay Pacific brand on his way to Asia from Los Angeles. He delivered once again this week! He was on a flight to Katmandu or Timbuktu or some other place that ends in “u” and opted to watch an episode of 30 Rock. The opening credits for the episode listed the United Airlines logo paired with NBC. He was on an American Airlines flight. Gulp.
People make mistakes, but this one is the kind that stands out. If you are a brand manager and miss the fact that your competitor’s brand is on your content then you’ve got a problem, hombre; vendor provided content not withstanding. At the end of the day, brand management is a soft and fuzzy form of quality assurance (QA) and quality control (QC).
With social media and social networking instantaneously broadcasting the successes and failures for brands, individuals that manage brands have got a much more intense job than they ever have in the history of marketing. With so many modern exposure points and amplification tools, top brand managers must create robust systems that catch mistakes like the one pictured above. Otherwise, people like me blog about them.
- In: branding
- Tags: 30 Rock, American Airlines, brand manager, branding, QA, QC, social media, United Airlines
4 Responses to American Airlines Brand Stumbles
Konrad Ribeiro
November 8th, 2009 at 11:24
Wow. Glaring consumer-facing error. Having said that, your point that there are almost innumerable consumer touch points is the key – Brand Managers are essentially obliged to hire agencies to hit them all. I wouldn’t put this on the Brand Manager as much as on the agency. They are paid a hefty sum to get this right. And there are definitely 20 other agencies that would gladly take the fee and get it *right*.
Yes, the buck stops with the Brand Manager but I’d ding him for poorly vetting the agency as much as for the content SNAFU.
As a Brand Manager, my team caught a spelling error on packaging that our print agency was supposed to be proofing. At the end of the day, we caught it (yeah!) but they didn’t (boo) so they will pay the price.
admin
November 8th, 2009 at 12:11
@konrad Thanks for posting. Very good point you make. Sounds like the brand manager is the last line of defense in a situation like this. While you hope that the vendor get’s it right, you stil have to mind your p’s and q’s. Thanks for your fresh POV
Billy Sanez
November 13th, 2009 at 12:55
As soon as we found out about this issue, we removed the program that had incorrect branding. It was an error in the program aggregation.
We appreciate the heads-up. Billy from American Airlines.
admin
November 14th, 2009 at 00:04
@Billy Thanks for reaching out. So glad you were able to catch it. I have to say that many brands many not have reached out to me and my readers. Kudos to you and American Airlines.