Southwest Success: People, Prices, Performance

In 1967, when traveling by air wasn't that common, and was known as the Elite Ride. Southwest Airlines came up with a strong new vision to make it feasible for the common man when only 15% of the customers used to travel by air Southwest targeted that 85% and made itself stand out of the market by not competing with its competitors but by giving the reason for non-travelers to travel through the air. They envisioned a low-cost carrier focusing on customer services and efficiency. Aiming to democratize air travel and make it affordable for the average American.?

They introduce a unique business model of point-to-point routes rather than the hub and spoke model used by competitors.?

The key things they used to become a success among their competitors were focusing on Efficiency, reducing the cost, and training the crew to work collaboratively, leading to more flights per day. They adopt a Customer Center Culture providing a fun and friendly environment for passengers and employees. Using ”LUV" to emotionally resonate with the audience and using tactics to build trust and authenticity among customers resulting in loyal customers.

They gradually expanded into more cities while maintaining their profits and using marketing tactics that were consistent with their brand image and vision. Currently, on December 31st, 2024, Southwest Airlines has a market capitalization of approximately $20.16 billion.?

Over time the core marketing strategies they used were: ?

• Low-Cost Leadership: positioning themselves to Go To Airlines, and affordable travel.
• Introduce Fare Transparency with no hidden fees for bags or ticket changes.?
• Using campaigns that are focused on humor and resonate with the average American, highlighting customer saving, simplicity, and convenience.?
• Focusing on Employee Advocacy and empowering their employees to embody the brand’s fun and friendly culture. They believe that happy employees create happy customers and become central to their operation.
• They were An Early Adopter and started their campaign on social media accounts and engaged with their audience they used platforms like Twitter and Facebook to handle customer service promote offers and humanize the brand.
• To Emotionally Resonate with their audience they partnered with local entities and charitable organizations and supported disaster relief for goodwill.
• They worked on Customer Loyalty Programs like rapid rewards programs allowing customers to earn points easily without blackout dates and fostering loyalty.?

How did they turn their challenges into opportunities??

It's not easy to bring something revolutionary to the market that isn't pretty common and it's not easy to target the majority of the audience that is not into traveling by air. Having a unique vision and standing out from the market southwest had plenty of challenges and they turned those challenges into opportunities. Overcame the crisis by planning and stepping proactively over the current scenarios to be at the edge of the leading market by minding the financial crisis in 2008, 9/11, and COVID-19 by maintaining a strong foundation and prioritizing customer trust.

• In 9/11 they controlled the cost and maintained low fares to sustain the demand.
• In the 2008 financial crisis, they hedged the fuel to maintain rising costs and saved billions.
• In COVID-19 they adapt swiftly by enhancing health protocols, offering flexible booking policies, and maintaining a People-First Approach, ensuring safety and trust.?
• They continuously keep on innovating themselves, they introduce online booking, and launch initiatives like premium boarding options and flexible seating to appeal to modern travelers.?

Winding it up

As I have spoken about it plenty of times the core of branding is Consistency, Adaptability, and Customer Satisfaction. But in this article, we have learned that Employee Focus plays an important role, as employees are representatives of the company, and no one can better embody a company's vision than the employees working within. Southwest Airlines has shown, that not only using the right tactics can make you a leader but understanding the market, providing solutions, and making your employees understand your vision is core when it comes to branding as they can emit the company's vision better than no one else can. Bringing a revolutionary thought like not competing with the competitors but rather providing solutions to customers and competing with the buses and cars, making air travel as feasible as common transport was the vision of Southwest Airlines. They understood their vision and what to sell and used effective taglines and distinctive marketing strategies respectively. which will be discussed in my upcoming articles. This article focuses on the broader picture of how Southwest Airlines developed its brand. For more stories like this, feel free to subscribe to Marketing Geek.