When companies hire fresh grads, they expect fresh ideas!
SimpliFlying CEO Shashank Nigam shares his story and tips on how to prosper in the creative industry.
HE HAS CIRCLED THE WORLD 1.5 TIMES THIS YEAR ALONE. And in the process, spoken about the changes in modern marketing and helped airlines and airports deal with them.
SimpliFlying CEO Shashank Nigam shares his take on the challenges in aviation marketing and what it takes to prosper in that field.
“We had to become more than a blog of which my mom and I were the main readers.”
Shashank Nigam
Q: You studied Information Systems; how did you start an aviation branding consultancy and how were the first years?
Shashank Nigam: I liked aeroplanes a lot and I wanted to do something in aviation. I also contributed to two branding books in college, so there was that marketing interest too.
While I was in Boston working for a startup, I realised that there was no service at the intersection of aviation and branding. So, I started out with a blog.
In the beginning, the biggest challenge was the lack of credibility. Everyone in the airline industry had worked in it for longer than me. I was a complete outsider trying to break in.
My big break came while I was still working at the startup in Boston. I wrote a white paper on airline marketing and introduced the 6x airline brand model.
When that was picked up and published by Interbrand NY, I had a hunch that I might be on to something.
Six months later I quit my job and decided to do this full time, not knowing how I would make any money. At one point, I was even contemplating printing t-shirts with my logo on it.
So that was another challenge: growing the blog into a business.
I slowly moved from just blogging, to speaking at conferences and eventually to consulting. Last month, we celebrated our 5th anniversary as SimpliFlying.
There are many intricate details to this journey. In fact, there is a book coming out, wherein I share my entrepreneurial journey and learnings.
Q: What are some of the risks and opportunities facing in aviation marketing and branding?
Shashank Nigam: The biggest risk and the biggest opportunity are the same:
“Airlines no longer control their brand.”
Think of the best airline brands. The “Singapore Airlines Girl” is a safely guarded identity, not to be touched. The Virgin Atlantic “Red” is a fixed brand element and untouchable.
But today, a brand has become a conversation. It is no longer a one way marketing street. It’s a two way conversation between the consumer (the connected traveller) and the airline.
The brands that allow consumers to have a conversation with them, are the ones that will probably win, because they develop emotional bonds, rather than transactional relationships with customers.
Q: You help airlines adapt to these new circumstances. How has it affected their talent needs?
Shashank Nigam: Social Media has impacted airlines dramatically. Nobody expected such an impact; so fast. Neither did we. But it happened.
A real tipping point was the Icelandic Volcano Eruption, that caused the biggest air-traffic shutdown since WWII. That was the moment when airlines started reacting and interacting on Twitter.
Two HR structures have emerged since then; Core, and Hub & Spoke.
The Core Structure
This structure has one Social Media team and they manage everything from one location.
This team covers all Social Media channels, handles requests from customer service, sales and marketing. KLM is an example of this, working from one single location.
KLM employs the world largest team (132 people) to implement their Core strategy.
The Hub and Spoke Structure
A central team that is supported by other functional and regional teams. Jetblue is an example of this.
A few team members from the communications department lead the Social Media effort, but others (from loyalty, e-commerce, marketing) join in when required.
At LATAM Airlines the core team is located in Santiago, Chile and they are complemented by point people in different countries across South America. We helped them create this structure from the ground up.
Q: What are the qualities of a successful aviation marketer?
Shashank Nigam:
Resilience
They need to be able to deal with internal setbacks. Airlines are huge companies with many silos. You have to be prepared to work the system, to sell your ideas.
Agility
You need to keep up with the apps your customers use. You need to experiment with all of them, and know how to use them to engage with your audience.
Business mindedness
You have to be able to link your work back to the business goals. If you can show that your efforts increased the loyalty of certain customers, then you can have the type of conversations that airline businesses like to have.
Q: What test would you give to find out if applicants have those qualities and skills?
Shashank Nigam:
Test 1: A customer is angry, because he missed his flight. He has 1.2 million Twitter followers and is tweeting about your airline. How would you handle this situation?
Test 2: Where does the core target market of an airline reside online? What listening tools you would use to research this?
Q: What are some specific talent requirements across regions?
Shashank Nigam: Language is the most critical factor.
In South America a person has to be fluent in Spanish and if possible, in Portuguese too. In the Middle East, being comfortable with Arabic is a must.
This can prove to be difficult, because one you don’t find local Social Media talent that also meets the language requirements. Hence, some regions still employ expats.
Q: What should students and graduates, looking to enhance their chances of breaking into the industry, focus on, in terms of skills and knowledge topics?
Shashank Nigam: Be familiar with the latest marketing/social media tools and strategies and have aviation knowhow. In that order or importance.
Airlines highly value someone young, with up to date knowledge of different social media and marketing tools. This is a good core competency to begin with.
Regarding marketing strategies:
If you can tell an airline “Heineken is really good with their B2C campaigns and we can learn from them.”, they are likely to be impressed, because
anytime a company hires a fresh grad, guess what, they also want fresh ideas!
Finally, if you have aviation knowledge, it’ll set you apart further.
Q: In his essay on how to build brands in the digital age, Martin Weigel writes: “There is as much to unlearn as there is to relearn”. What are you unlearning and relearning?
“Learning: new contexts and local knowledge.
Unlearning: old marketing rules.”
- Shashank Nigam
Shashank Nigam:
Learning: new contexts and local knowledge.
Liverpool International Airport is a new client. It is an airport with a focus on low cost airlines. So, we have to learn this new context.
On the other hand, for a client in the Middle East, we’re constantly immersing ourselves in the local culture to better understand our audience.
Unlearning: old marketing rules.
The 5P’s of marketing are no longer relevant, especially in aviation. The place of action for airlines in terms of P, is in the air. This requires us to rethink how we interact and communicate.
Q: But the ‘P’ of price is still an important driver?
Shashank Nigam: Price is still a driver for a number of markets and travellers. However, price conscious travellers are usually not the most profitable customer base.
The people up front, in first and business class, contribute 80% of an airline’s revenue and they do not sort by price.
They sort by schedule and amenities. How many movies are there onboard? Is there wifi on board? These are the questions they ask.
Q: How does onboard wifi change the job of aviation executives?
Shashank Nigam: It changes it completely, because now people will demand real-time customer service. They will also comment and share in real-time.
If they don’t like the food, they won’t tell the flight attendant, they will tell their friends and followers on Facebook.
Real-time communication is a whole new dimension that has been added to the job of an airline executive.
An example:
Turkish Airlines monitors real time conversations on one of their aircrafts with onboard wifi.
So, anytime certain keywords are mentioned, such as delays or lost baggage, the passengers get an immediate response. They’re doing a pretty good job.
At the same time, many other airlines will have to learn quickly.
For instance, Saudi Airlines started offering free wifi to business class passengers. They now need to prepare to deal with the opportunities and challenges of this development.
Vueling Airlines in Spain already has a social media training module for every pilot that joins their team. This shows the importance of Social Media in aviation.
Q: With the way that tech, design and product development are merging, what would you advise 21-year old Shashank, if he asked you where to get a job after graduating?
Shashank Nigam:
Join a start up. It will allow you to assume larger responsibilities, much faster than in a large organisation. I joined one with the aim of starting my own company. And after two years, I started SimpliFlying.
Thank you Shashank.
