August 17, 2007

Low Cost Airlines can get Cheaper!!

Oh god!! I was planning on publishing this post on this "great idea" that I had - unfortunately I got a proposal this morning about the exact same idea. Well, I still claim that the original idea was uninspired.


Anyway getting on to the idea itself - I always wondered why low cost airlines in India don't leverage branding opportunities available to the max. There is a captive audience sitting in the plane with absolutely nothing to do. Low cost airlines don't even have in flight entertainment to distract their flying guests.

And when you aren't doing anything, you normally don't mind staring at the face of a pretty model right? Or even learning why the Honda City is better than the Toyota Corolla. Low cost Airlines should sell space to advertisers and the really obvious locations are

1) The food trays (when its closed and when its open) - Should be the most expensive place to advertise
2) Luggage compartment branding - Next most expensive
3) Window shutter - 3rd most expensive

Unfortunately not really a low cost option for advertisers - but if used well by low cost airlines, it could result in incremental revenue which could then be used to lower fares even further. There should be more revenue streams for low cost airlines. Let them know about it and we can probably travel around the world for free!!

To read more about this concept and how it has been used on American airlines click here





3 comments:

KillerCoconut said...

yes and they can go one step further and play an actual ad of the product ... but for that they'll have to put screens in each of the flights (which is money) .. so they can ask the company to have a promoter to do the same (but that again is money) ...
so they can do one more thing .. ask the beautiful air hostess (or is she ? ) to do the talking for the product. At the end of the security announcement, during the flight, etc. ... captive audience (as you said) gets to hear about product benefits from a beautiful (ok im mean) airhostess ! !

Anonymous said...

while we are at it, why dont we advertise on the toilet seat too......bluddy blood-sucking marketing types I say

Ishwar said...

It can get irritating when ads intruding erstwhile ad free spaces. But there is always a trade off between lower costs and ads (as on a lot of free software - its free with ads and paid for if without ads). If a captive audience were forced to listen to a sales pitch which takes a fair bit of their time, everyone would hate it. Static ads are relatively non intrusive and one can turn a blind eye to them if disinterested.