Failure Case: Song Airlines
Song Airlines was founded in April of 2003 by Delta Airlines in wake of one of the largest decreases in flight travel in history caused by the September 11 attacks just a short time before. Delta wanted to revamp air travel and create an airline that took the stress and worry out of flying in hopes of making it enjoyable again.  Additionally Delta wanted to combat JetBlue; a smaller airline which had been leaching into one of Delta’s most profitable markets: east coast puddle hopping (short flights between east coast cities).

Delta wanted to revamp the airline industry to make flying more enjoyable, comfortable, and cheaper. To do this Delta launched a completely new airline that would not follow the generic airline model. Rather than being planned and launched by businessmen and economists Song Airlines was the brain child of a team of marketing and advertising experts. The team included internationally known celebrities such as Andy Spade, and Tim Mapes the head of marketing.  They decided to create an airline that would offer customers a quality level of flight unheard of for coach class flights while remaining competitively priced.

Song Airlines would offer higher level of service to each of their customers; not just the first class customers, in fact there was no first class. All the tickets were the same: coach. This does not mean, however, that the service was comparable other airlines’ coach class, on the contrary, the service offered by Song Airlines rivaled that offered by other airlines’ first class. Song Airlines offered customers leather seats, personal entertainment systems which included a personal LCD TV, satellite TV, music selections, and games. Song offered complimentary beverages, a choice of brand name healthy organic meals, and specialty cocktail drinks created by Rande Gerber. The flight crew even wore uniforms designed by Kate Spade.

In order the market the company Tim Mapes and his team of marketing experts decided rather than marketing the price of the airline they would advertise the ‘culture’ of the airline. The team wanted to connect to the customer on an emotional level rather than a logical level. To do this team conducted studies to find out what customers felt was the most important emotional component of the ideal flight. Using this information Song Airlines launched an ad campaign that was supposed to connect to their customers on an emotional level. These advertisements did not show prices and statistics; rather they showed happy and bright images that were designed to trigger an emotional response of the viewer and connect that positive emotion with the company. The team hoped that this emotional response would be enough to convince the viewer to fly with Song Airlines.

Song Airlines was Delta’s response to JetBlue, which had been carving away one of Delta’s most profitable markets: east coast puddle hopping. JetBlue offered prices that Delta simply could not compete with. Although Song airlines was able to operate cheaper than Delta, by approximately 20%, they were still not able competitively price their tickets. Song relied on their advertising and a higher level of service to draw customers.