Assignment:
Review the book delta airlines (b):The launch song by Jan W.Rivkin and Laurent Therivel
The Launch of Song (Branding and Product Development)
This is a text and video case study. Please read the case study materials carefully. Also, please go online and view the videos related to this case (see the link below).
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/video/flv/generic.html?s=frol02p74&continuous=1
Team Paper: As a team, please prepare comprehensive written response /paper for the following questions.
Q1. What is Song and what was the business problem that Song was designed to fix? How did Delta eventually structure Song to deal with these business and marketing problems?
Q2. Song is a service business and as such engages in service marketing. Referring to the nature and characteristics of service firms beginning in the text, please describe the ways in which Song used each of the service characteristics in its marketing and cite examples from the case.
Q3. Discuss Song's positioning strategy AND targeting strategy and discuss how they implemented this strategy citing examples from the case study.
Q4. Referring to the case video and the discussions of "Brand Love," what is the difference between an emotional brand image strategy (i.e. Infiniti) and an attribute/benefit based brand strategy (i.e. connecting attributes/benefits)? Did Song have a branding strategy, and if so, was it an emotional brand image strategy or an attribute/benefit based strategy. Explain.
Q5. Did Song succeed or fail? Please go online and do some research on Song Airline. In your research find out if Song was a success or a failure. Based on your research, application of text and lecture materials on branding and elements of service businesses, and the issues from the case, please pick from the list below one of the reasons given for Song's failure and discuss why you picked this as the primary reason for Song's failure. Given your selection, if you were VP of Marketing at Song, what would you have done differently? Why?
A. Song failed not because of marketing strategy or implementation, but because of problems inherent in the business relationship between Delta and Song. If given enough time the marketing would have worked and Song would have met its financial targets. However, because of the way the business relationship was structured between Delta and Song, and the demand to generate traffic imposed on Song, there was not enough time for the marketing to actually work, OR
B. Song failed because of poorly conceived marketing strategies for a service business. Song's targeting and/or positioning and/or product differentiation were poorly conceived, OR
C. The strategy was (mostly) correct. Song's failure was due to poor implementation of its marketing strategy. It's advertising and promotions were poorly conceived. Song's tactics, creative and other advertising were poorly implemented.