Internet Advertising of British Airways

This paper presents an extensive understanding of the nature and purpose of advertising using the kind of medium – the Internet. In order to specifically focus the concepts of internet advertising, British Airways will be the case to be tackled. Further, supplementary information are added such as the role of advertising and implications of internet advertising.

Advertising is bringing the company’s products and services to the mindset of the target market (Carter 1999; Allen et al. 2001; Goddard 2002) using different mediums like TV, radio, internet, and print media. It refers to the paid promotion of goods and services through a sponsoring organization or company using statements and slogans (Elinder 1961) that are appealing to the target people. This kind of advertisement is also considered as a myth about myth (Wernick 1994). According to Leiss (1972), the process has been recognized as a “major vehicle of social communication in modern Western society (p.122).” There are commonly three main objectives of advertisements: (1) conveying relevant information regarding a particular product or service; (2) persuading consumers to purchase the advertised product; and, (3) keep the company under the watchful eyes of the public (Hancock et al. 2002). In a general sense, advertising is being utilized to be able to impart to the consumers the availability of a particular product. In a way, it is also able to provide critical information regarding the product. When an advertising campaign is achieved effectively, this can lead to an increased demand for the product.

In using global advertising, companies hope to create consistent brand images worldwide, spend less marketing resources in producing unified appeals, and use only one or a few international agencies to handle the company's entire advertising (Harris 1994; Mueller 1991 Englis 1994). Multinational companies as well as local companies now use both global and local advertising (Barber 1996; Featherstone 1990; Friedman 1999; Sklair 1995; Duncan & Ramaprasad 1995).

Advertising is viewed as a tool that facilitates a consumer’s decision-making by making available information that will provide a buyer a line of choices from which he will pick those products and commodities that will satisfy his need state (Tuerck 1978). Furthermore, advertising also helps promote market competition which, in turn, widens the range of product options and brands that are brought to the attention of the consumers. This, according to Tuerck minimizes, if not eradicates, the possibility of one marketer to gain sole control and domination over one market segment.

The Relevance-Accessibility Model of Advertising Effectiveness (RAM) presumes that the primary purpose of advertising is to present information that will give the brand a relative advantage over competing brands at the time of brand choice (Mitchell 1993). RAM has two assumptions: firstly, elements of the advertising message must be accessible at the time of brand choice to be effective; and secondly, advertising information must be relevant to be effective.

Advertising impressions may be visual, verbal, or emotional. The RAM views brand attitudes, judgments, or preferences formed at the time of advertising exposure as potential mediators of brand choice (Mitchell 1993). There is what is called the “pure effect” – a level that refers to "free-floating" feelings and emotional responses that are consciously unlinked to any specific brand attributes, benefits, and past promotional (e.g., advertising) or usage experiences, at least at the time of brand choice. Such affect provides no real evidence of either absolute or relative product quality, but consumers may interpret it as such. When individuals make decisions based on pure affect, they are reacting solely to a feeling, not on the information that led to that feeling (Mitchell 1993). Positive feelings intrinsically motivate approach behavior; negative feelings motivate avoidance behavior (Skinner 1972; Zajonc 1980).

Like business, consumers are concerned with their own image. They want to be seen in a favorable light. The consumer's interest lies in his self-image -- the image he has and would like to have of himself (Lazer 1971). In reacting to marketing stimuli and in making purchase decisions, consumers will readily accept those activities that enhance or relate positively to consumer self-image. Similarly, if an advertising or selling campaign is created that enables the consumer to identify favorably with the situation presented, then the campaign is more likely to be successful. The values that form or furnish the basis of self-image and identification are fundamental to the cultivation of effective marketing programs, but they are hidden and hard to detect, even with psychological instruments (Lazer 1971).

Internet Advertising

Internet advertising or sometimes called, as web advertising is a type of advertising in which a person can control or customize the information according to his/her interest with the use of internet (Shih 2001). It provides instant interaction and connection to the consumers since the buyers or the audiences are the one who decides on what ad to view favorable to the field of their interest. The consumers are given the power to control the opportunity in establishing an on-line participation through the use of internet (Cartellieri 1997; Kim 2001).

The birth of internet advertising started in the year 1994 when Netscape navigator 1.0 was launched (Steinbock 2000). It only started by using banner ads as compared to these days in which companies are able to put their advertisements through pop-ups, micro-sites and other ad formats. With this innovation, internet advertising have gained significance in promoting the company’s products and services and have considered that the medium have been successful in providing the company to have instant interaction with the consumers which marked opportunity for the company to save time and money (Kameya & Zmija 2002).

British Airways and Internet Advertising

According to the study of Doganis (1994), internet shopping is increasingly accepted and used by consumers. Business priorities within the airline industry have changed. A 1999 survey by IBM of senior executives and board members of 119 of the world's leading airlines found that improving customer service and customer loyalty were considered to be the two most critical strategies in meeting their airlines' financial goals (IBM 1999).

The rapid development of information technology during the 1990s has provided airlines with several new tools with which to woo customers and to improve customer service in many areas of airline operations. In the area of marketing and distribution two in particular will play an increasingly important role. These are sales and distribution through the Internet and electronic ticketing. Together they represent the key elements of the application of electronic commerce to air transport. They will undoubtedly transform dramatically the way that airline services and products are marketed and distributed. The process is well under way but the full impact of e-commerce has still to be felt by airlines or their customers. In particular they need to appreciate that the new electronic marketplace will have different rules. While electronic ticketing spread rapidly in North America and less rapidly in Europe in the later 1990s, sales through the Internet lagged far behind.

A 1999 survey of the state of IT among the world's leading airlines found that 43 per cent of them expected that within five years, that is, by the end of 2003, they would be selling over half of all their tickets online through the Internet (Ebbinghaus 1999). Yet at the time of the survey in 1999 none was selling more than 10 per cent of tickets online and for most the actual figure was much lower. While Delta, Northwest and US Airways took around 7 per cent of their bookings on the Internet in 1999, for British Airways and most European airlines it was less than 1 per cent (Aviation Strategy 2000). Yet growth in Internet sales can be extremely rapid, as the low-cost carriers have shown. easyJet, in the UK, introduced Internet ticketing at the end of 1997. Within a few months around 10 per cent of its sales were through the Internet and by the end of 1999 Internet sales were averaging close to 40 per cent (Kasper 1994).

Research found out that 56 percent of the internet users are being exposed to internet advertising and 18 percent of which are actually clicking the ad (Bluestreak.com 2003). In Europe, Internet advertising revenues in the year 2000 reached an estimated amount of US$ 180 million in the UK and US$300 million in France (Mcdowall 2001). But the European Commission (1999) said that there are more serious and long-term problems that the airlines industry will be facing in using the Internet such as the balance of market power that has shifted in favor of the consumer. The electronic marketplace offers consumers both fast, borderless and efficient access to information on airline services, timings and prices and the ability to make rapid and effortless reservations and payments.

One of the goals of the British Airways is to become the major airline in electronic distribution providing a full range of services. This entails developing their websites so as to provide users with more information on, and booking opportunities with, other airlines, possibly competitors. They should also provide seamless access to hotel reservations, car hire, entertainment bookings and so on. They will after all generate some commission revenue by cross-selling while providing an enhanced service to their own customers. In addition they would need to provide corporate customers with the ability to track expenses, monitor travel policies as well as any other services currently offered by travel agents. In other words, they should move towards providing a real 'one-stop shop' for travel.

In internet advertising, the companies are able to use different formats depending on the company’s preferred strategies on advertising their products or services. These formats come with the placement of the advertisement on banners, pop-ups, click through, sponsorships and others. British Airways uses all the said formats. Formats are simply the way the advertisement is placed in the web. It is the company’s decision on what format are they going to use to effectively establish the rendered products and services.

Banners advertisements are described as ads placed on a rectangular-shaped graphics which is often seen at the upper part and the lower part of the webpage (Schumann & Thorson 1999). This format is the most common format of internet advertisement.

Another format of internet advertisement is the pop-ups. This format shows in a separate window on top of content that is already on the user's screen (Schumann & Thorson 1999). With this kind of format, users do not have control on the appearance of the ad since this format were already program to be shown on the web and do not offer an option of deleting or escaping the ad because it is intended to show the ad to the user even if the user do not want to view the ad. One disadvantage of this format is that user may tend not to patronize the product or the advertisement being promoted since it interrupts the flow of work of the users however advertiser assumes that having this format will increase the awareness of the users since it will have a bigger chance for the users to recall the ad pop-ups.

Sponsorship is another format of the internet advertising. It is coined as a indirect form of internet advertising that permit companies to achieve marketing objectives by connecting it with the key content (Schumann & Thorson 1999). Companies are jumping into this kind of format since they believe that it is a user-friendly approach of promoting and establishing the company’s products and services since it does not take too much time.

The next type of internet advertisement is the hyperlink format or often called as the hypertext link which can be recognized easily since this type of advertisement format is the highlighted word or graphics in the web that permits the users to connect or linked in another websites by clicking on the hyperlink. This format does not require too much space on the web since most hyperlinks are only presented through text.

The Implementation of Internet Advertising and the British Airways

Accordingly, British Airways (BA) is one of the world’s largest international airlines and carries over 49 million passengers on 535,000 flights annually. To ensure that an operation of this size functions as smoothly and effectively as possible, BA needs to attract talented individuals for a wide range of disciplines. With 65,000 staff spread across the globe, and a need to recruit thousands of people each year, it is essential that BA has in place a streamlined process to quickly select the best people. Most importantly, the company has to be able to identify and attract the exceptional graduates that will form the leaders of the future.

In year 2001, British Airways established a partnership with RightNow Technologies for the implementation of AskBA customer service that will respond to 55,000 customers’ inquiries every week. The objective of this project is to head the company’s goal of a client facilitated BA.com, where the website will play a vital role in letting clients to serve themselves to every transactions from booking a flight, holiday or car, to checking in online, changing their booking and printing their own boarding passes. The BA.com has made transactions of the clients so easy. British Airways rank as one of the UK’s largest software and systems suppliers because of their Desktop Services group on a coordinated change program in order to enhance radically the performance and gain substantial cost reductions.

The Challenges of the Implementation of Internet Advertising in British Airways

One of the major challenges which British Airways must face is facing is the balance of market power that is more in favor of their clients. This is because the internet gives the client an easy, fast and unlimited access to the airline services, schedules, prices and all other important data about British Airways. Consumer power leads to the commoditization of the airline services. The services will possibly become more or less standard. Internet advertising and internet use will also result to the in conflicts between the airlines and travel agents since the clients could do all their transactions through the internet. This leads to a reduction in ticket sales and actively takes business away by enhancing sales through internet and their own call centers.

The Benefits of the Implementation of Internet Advertising in the British Airways

Clients have transferred manner of ticket purchasing internationally and 20 percent of all British Airways tickets are now sold through its ba.com website. There is a profit gain of 10 percent in the past 2 years. With the start of low cost internet airlines, the rivalry to offer quicker, and safer online bookings. The airline company joined over 27,000 retailers, and 65 issuing banks across Europe that has now signed up for Verified by Visa, an exclusive password service designed to provide shoppers added safety and security when shopping online. The introduction of Verified by Visa has considerably decreased online fraud (BA.com 2005), thus generating necessary excellent profits for British Airways.

Implications of Internet Advertising

The existence of Internet and the continued revolution in the world of IT are certainly positive signs for the blossoming of many new advertising opportunities (Cartellieri 1997). For instance, Popup ads and email ads have started to invade the Internet. Most advertising firms have also started to exert efforts to make their advertisements appealing to the public (McAndrews et al. 2001). Further, creation of ads using the internet is cheaper than any other media because it is easier to make. It saves more time and money since it includes a matter of programming and formatting the ad’s layout. The products or the services reached a wider target market using the internet. Since advertising it on a less strict medium, the product is being viewed with different type of users. This contributes on the success of promoting the company’s products and services since it obtain a larger user’s share.

Since internet is directly connected on the user’s home, the consumers could easily browse the ads they wanted to view; this increases the awareness of the products and services which in turn produce a more profitable outcome in the company. Consumers could easily access all the information he/she wanted to obtain since internet advertising offers more accessible information regarding the products or services being rendered. The accessibility rate of an online advertising targets a larger consumer since browsing the net runs 24 hours a day and allows the consumers to retrieved information anytime of the day. With the internet features like email and online-forums, the company could easily contact the consumers. With the easy access of the consumers to the company, the users could easily communicate to the company and satisfied their needs in terms of inquiries about the advertised products and services.

However, there have also been disadvantages in this kind of medium (Onkvisitn & Shaw 1999). Since internet advertising provides a need of assurance on the credibility of the company endorsing their products and services. The convincing elements of the Internet advertisement only depend on the user’s clicking away of the advertisement from the current location. This involves the user to be adequately fascinated in the endorsed products or services. The absence of personal contact between the user and the company tends the user to disregard the advertisement on the web.

In recent years, the public opinion regarding advertising has become very negative. They view it as a medium that only promotes lies. This is of course contrary to the purpose of advertisements to encourage the target market to patronize a particular product or service. Nowadays, most advertisements are either perceived as merely stating opinions or portraying a product or service in a totally distorted idea away from reality (Saunders 2001). It is this alarming situation regarding the true objectives of advertising that have led to an increase in the responsibilities that companies and advertising firms face (Gertler et al. 2004).

The effectiveness of the medium (Wells 1997) as utilized by the company can be measured by the level of success being attained in meeting their desired goal to create changes on the consumers’ attitudes and behaviors after the exposure to the advertisement. Illustration of these changes are manifested by the consumer’s heightened awareness to the products or services, increase in sales and profitability, growth of target market base, positive feedbacks from the consumers and an increase of the public agreement with the advertisement message.

The nature of advertising is to successfully convey the brand’s message to the consumers and effectively established the products and/or services being rendered. Primarily, advertising is used for the purpose of increasing the products sales, enhance the product’s image, and develop the trust of the consumers in the product or service being advertise.

References

Allen, F & Gale, D 2001, ‘Financial Markets, Intermediaries, and Intertemporal

Smoothing,’ Journal of Political Economy, vol.105, pp. 523-546.

Aviation Strategy 2000, 'US low-cost carriers reassert themselves', Aviation Strategy, No. 29, March.

Barber, B 1996, Jihad vs. MacWorld: How Globalism and Tribalism Are Reshaping the World, Ballantine Books, New York:

Bluestreak.com 2003, Internet advertising, viewed 26 April 2006 from

http://www.scs.unr.edu/~shaina/Marketing%20Template.pdf#search='Bluestreak%202003%2C%20Internet%20advertising.'

British Airways 2006, The Company Website, viewed 26 April 2006 from http://www.britishairways.com/travel/home/public/en_gb.

Cartellieri, C 1997, ‘The Real Impact of Internet advertising,’ The McKinsey

Quarterly, no. 3.

Carter, M 1999, Basic definitions: Advertising, marketing, Promotion, Public

Relations and Publicity, and Sales. Minnesota.

Doganis, R 1994, 'The impact of liberalisation on European airline strategies and operations,’ Journal of Air Transport Management, vol. 1, no.1, pp. 4.

Duncan, T & Ramaprasad, J 1995, ‘Standardized Multinational Advertising: The

Influencing Factors,’ Journal of Advertising, vol. 24, no.3, pp. 55-68.

Ebbinghaus, D September 1999, The Impact of E-business and E-commerce in the Air Transport Industry, IATA Airline Financial Forum, Hong Kong.

Elinder, E 1961, ‘International Advertisers Must Devise Universal Ads, Dump

Separate National Ones, Swedish Adman Avers,’ Advertising Age, no. 27, pp. 21 – 34.

Englis, BB (ed.) 1994, Global and Multinational Advertising, Lawrence Erlbaum

Associates, Hillsdale, New Jersey.

European Commission 1999, The European Airline Industry: From a Single Market to a World-wide Challenge, Brussels (June).

Featherstone, M 1990, Global Culture: Nationalism, Globalization and Modernity, Sage, London.

Friedman, T 1999, Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, New York.

Gertler, M & Gilchrist, S 2004, ‘Monetary Policy, Business Cycles and the

Behavior of Small Manufacturing Firms,’ Quarterly Journal of Economics, pp. 309-40.

Goddard, A 2002, The Language of Advertising: Written Texts, Routledge,

London.

Hancock, D, Humphrey, DB & Wilcox, JA 2002, ‘Cost Reductions in Electronic

Payments: The Roles of Consolidation, Economies of Scale and Technical Change,’ Journal of Banking and Finance, vol. 23, pp. 391-421.

Harris, G 1994, ‘International Advertising Standardization: What Do the

Multinationals Actually Standardize?’, Journal of International Marketing, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 13-30.

IBM 1999, World Airlines Benchmark Report, IBM United Kingdom Limited, Feltham, UK.

Kameya, A & Zmija, C 2002, What makes online advertising effective?, Michigan

State University.

Kasper, DM 1994, 'The US Airline Commission: an insider's perspective,' Journal of Air Transport Management, vol. 1, no. 1, March.

Kim, J 2001, ‘Is the internet more effective than traditional media? Factors

affecting the choice of media,’ Journal of Advertising, 41.

Lazer, W 1971, Marketing Management: A Systems Perspective, Wiley, New

York.

Leiss, W 1972, The Domination of Nature, George Braziller, New York in

Riedlinger, M & Pittam, J (eds.) 1997, Nutritional Supplement

Advertising: Representations of Science and Nature. Media International

Australia, pp. 122.

McAndrews, J & Roberds 2001, ‘A General Equilibrium Analysis of Check Float,’ Journal of Financial Intermediation, 8 October, pp. 353-77.

McDowall, B 2001 ‘Internet advertising- or is it advertising,’ IT Analysis, UK.

Mitchell, AA (ed.) 1993, Advertising Exposure, Memory, and Choice, Lawrence

Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, NJ

Mueller, B 1991, ‘Multinational Advertising: Factors Influencing the Standardized

Versus the Specialized Approach,’ International Marketing Review, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 7-18.

Onkvisit, S & Shaw, J 1999, ‘Standardized International Advertising: Some

Research Issues and Implications,’ Journal of Advertising Research, vol. 39, no. 6, pp.1 9-24.

Saunders, C 2001, ‘Study: Advertising is Barrier to Entry in Web Media,’ Internet Study Report, June 5.

Schumann, DW & Thorson, E 1999, Advertising and the World Wide Web,

Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ.

Shih, M 2001, The Future of interactive advertising on the World Wide Web,

viewed 26 April 2006 from http://www.ciadvertising.org/student_account/spring_01/adv391k/myshih/ia/home1.htm.

Skinner, BF 1972, Beyond freedom and dignity, Alfred A. Knopf, New York.

Sklair, L 1995, Sociology of the Global System, 2nd ed., Johns Hopkins

University Press, Baltimore.

Steinbock, D 2000, The Birth of Internet Marketing Communications, Quorum

Books, Westport, CT.

Tuerck, DG 1978, Issues in Advertising: The Economics of Persuasion, American Enterprise Institute, Washington DC.

Wells, WD 1997, Measuring Advertising Effectiveness, Lawrence Erlbaum

Associates, Hillsdale, NJ.

Wernick, A 1994, Re-Imagining Technology: The Case of Cars, in

Promotional Culture, London, Sage, pp. 67-91.

Zajonc, RB 1980, ‘Feelings and thinking preferences need no inferences,’

American Psychologist, vol. 35, pp. 151-75.