Brand Building Strategy of EmiratesBy Team Emirates

Members:

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Table of ContentTable of Content.....................................................................................................................................2

Table of Figures......................................................................................................................................2

1. Brand Inventory........................................................................................................................3

1.1. History and Facts about Emirates..................................................................................3

1.2. Target Market...................................................................................................................3

1.3. Brand Identity Inventory..................................................................................................5

1.4. Brand Marketing Inventory..............................................................................................5

1.5. Competition.......................................................................................................................7

1.6. Brand Performance..........................................................................................................8

2. Brand Meaning Audit.............................................................................................................10

2.1. Web research.................................................................................................................10

2.2. Qualitative Research.....................................................................................................12

2.3. Quantitative Research??..............................................................................................12

2.4. Brand Positioning Statement........................................................................................12

3. Challenges and Recommendations....................................................................................12

4. Appendix.................................................................................................................................13

5. References.............................................................................................................................28

Table of FiguresFigure 1: facebook likes 11.05.2014.....................................................................................................18Figure 2: location of visiors...................................................................................................................19Figure 3: tripadvisor.............................................................................................................................19Figure 4: visitors...................................................................................................................................20Figure 5: links.......................................................................................................................................20Figure 6: search engines.......................................................................................................................21Figure 7: sites linking in........................................................................................................................21Figure 8: related sites...........................................................................................................................21Figure 9: other websites.......................................................................................................................22Figure 10: Marketing grader.................................................................................................................22Figure 11: SEO......................................................................................................................................23Figure 12: Lead Generation..................................................................................................................24Figure 13: Mobile.................................................................................................................................26Figure 14: Social Media........................................................................................................................26Figure 15: Sponsors World Cup............................................................................................................27Figure 16: average time........................................................................................................................28

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1. Brand Inventory

1.1. History and Facts about EmiratesThe airline was founded in May 1985 by the government of the emirate Dubai. In the same

year, Emirates was starting air traffic with flights to Mumbai, Karachi and New Delhi. In 1987,

the flight routes have been expanded to Europe and in 1990 the first flight to Asia took place.

During the nineties Emirates was one of the fastest growing airlines worldwide and in 1993

the company was already able to show a profit of US$ 500 million. In the following years

Emirates was growing enormously. Its rise is closely connected to the ambitious commercial

capital Dubai.

In the financial year 2013/2014 Emirates was carrying 44.5 million passengers and 2.25

million tons of cargo to over 140 destinations in over 80 countries (Emirates2, 2014, p. 147).

Emirates operates a fleet of 225 airplanes and has outstanding orders for over 300 airplanes

with a total value of approximately US$ 138 billion (as of June 2014). Moreover, Emirates

has the biggest fleet of both the Airbus A380 (90) and Boeing 777 (127) (Emirates, 2015).

The latest annual report displays an average employee strength of 41,471 in the financial

year 2013/2014 (Emirates2, 2014, p. 147).

Since 1987 Emirates has partnerships with well-known football clubs, Formula 1, rugby,

tennis or horse racing. In addition, the company has been committed to sponsorship in arts

and culture (Emirates, 2015). In the previous financial year, Sales and marketing expenses

accounted for 3.5% of the operating expenses (Emirates2, 2014, p. 62).

Emirates was voted “the world’s ‘Most Valuable Airline Brand‘ for the third consecutive year

in the Brand Finance Global 500 Report for 2014, with an estimated brand value of US$ 5.5

billion“ (Emirates2, 2014, p. 19). Furthermore, the airline was elected “World’s Best Airline

2013“ and their inflight entertainment was awarded the “World’s Best Inflight Entertainment“

for the ninth consecutive year.

1.2. Target MarketEmirates as the world’s “Most Valuable Airline Brand” serves almost every continent in the world and therefore provides well connected destinations by using Dubai as a transport hub (Emirates, 2014). Therefore, Emirates reaches all possible customers that are in the served available market with its marketing efforts by using the seven Ps of the Marketing Mix: Price, Place, Promotion, Product, People, Process and Physical Evidence (Tabatabaei, 2013, pp. 53-54). However, the airline established different strategies to target different segments of its target market. The target markets can be differentiated by the different cabin classes and geographical regions.

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Emirates has the goal to become a well-recognized brand and to become the number one airline for families travelling from Australia for leisure by 2015 which will also support the objective to become the number one airline brand in the world by 2017 (Assad, 2013, p. 8). The overall marketing strategy is a premium price strategy that stands for excellent service and luxury and that focuses on the key segments, The First and Business Class travelers or in other words high ranking executives and businessmen that are seeking for luxury and comfort in travel (Tabatabaei, 2013).But to reach its goals it also needs to focus more and more on the less profitable economy class. Emirates wants to achieve the objectives by increasing consumer awareness and by introducing a new pricing reward system to encourage families to travel with Emirates (Assad, 2013, p. 9). To reach the goal of increasing awareness, Emirates established a broad media mix to reach a broad spectrum of customers (Assad, 2013, pp. 29-33).In addition, the airline launched the “Hello Tomorrow” campaign to become one of the most beloved and recognized lifestyle brands going forward (Emirates, 2012). In addition to TV, print and out-of-home advertising, one of the campaign’s key components is called “Harmony”. (Emirates, 2012)It is a website that invites consumers to create their own piece of music, or record their own interpretation of the composition. The target audience was described as global thinking people who live to experience new cultures and who often spend time either living or working abroad. (Emirates, 2015)(BBC Advertising, 2012)According to the magazine “Skytrax”, Emirates offers the best in-flight entertainment system. The system is called ICE (Information, Communication and Entertainment) and is provided in all cabins. This system should therefore help to attract more customers in every business segment although it is especially designed for businessmen. It includes a variety of more than 1000 channels on demand for its users. Latest news can be consumed by providing “live” television streams (information), travelers can use the opportunity to communicate via phone calls, text messages or email (communication) and for entertainment, the airline offers various music channels, TV series and movies. (Emirates, 2012)The first addressed market is the First Class and Business class segment with its upper income customers as they are considered as most profitable for the airline because they are willing to pay higher prices for luxury service and luxury interior. Emirates is the first airline that purchased the Airbus A380 and introduced Private Suites for the first class customers in its fleets (Emirates, 2015). In addition, it is the first to provide on-board showers for its customers for a better comfort (Tabatabaei, 2013, p. 30). Emirates launched “Emirates Executive”, an Airbus A319 private jet service for business travelers and VIPs with a focus on luxury and exclusive service (Emirates2, 2014, p. 9). The airline also offers an inflight lounge and fine dining experience. Emirates also provides high-speed internet connectivity with the ability to send and receive text messages, place calls and send and receive emails (Emirates, 2015). Furthermore, Emirates attracts these customers by offering seats that can be converted into flat beds and by offering extra-long tables that can be used as a work station. Flexible walls can be used to ensure the private zone. (Emirates, 2015)To lure those travelers, the airline invested in the upgrade of the Emirates Lounges in Paris Charles De Gaulle airport, London Gatwick and Bangkok. These projects are part of a refurbishment program to bring all of the Emirates Lounges to the same visual appearance and design experience as the major hub in Dubai International airport. The Emirates Lounge network is also continuously expanded, for example with the opening of a brand new Lounge at Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci Fiumicino airport. (Emirates2, 2014, p. 10)

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The second segment is the Economy class. This segment is considered least profitable but it is important to create brand awareness throughout the whole market. A key element to reach the customers is that Emirates provides a personal video in all three classes. In addition, Emirates launched the “Kids go Free” campaign to target families. This campaign includes promotions that the first child ticket costs only half price and all children under three are free (Assad, 2013, p. 24). This low price strategy by keeping the high quality service should increase brand selection over competitors in the short term. (Emirates, 2010)Another focus of Emirates lies on the Cargo segment. Emirates invested in new freighter aircrafts as well as in the ability to fly perishable goods and pharmaceutical products more cost effectively by developing an innovative coating technology (Emirates2, 2014, p. 9). It also expanded the freighter operations to further destinations and to serve more of the world’s most important industry centers. On the ground, Emirates also invested in additional capacity at both airports in Dubai and also created a road corridor linking the two airports to ensure more efficient freight movements (Emirates2, 2014, p. 9). In the UK, Emirates completed dnata City. Dnata City is a £70 million investment that offers innovative facilities for warehousing and cargo handling in one of the most important airports in Europe (Emirates2, 2014, p. 17). In Singapore, Emirates opened a new cool chain facility with the latest cold storage technology and web-based monitoring (Emirates2, 2014, p.17). This helps to enhance the ability to handle shipments of pharmaceutical products and perishable goods. Emirates also fostered the development and roll out of Calogi, an integrated business environment that enables the customers to work in a paper-free business environment when working with Emirates (Emirates2, 2014, p. 17). Geographically, Emirates focuses its marketing efforts on the region South East Asia. The partnership with Quantas aims to help Emirates attracting more Australian Customers. This partnership allows Emirates customers to take advantage of the combined network into Australia, through Dubai and beyond (Emirates, 2015) (Quantas, 2013). A new codeshare agreement with Jetstar also helps to open up additional destinations in Australia, New Zealand and South East Asia (Jetstar, 2014).

1.3. Brand Identity Inventory

1.4. Brand Marketing InventoryThe four Ps, short for product, price, place, and promotion, describe the idea that in order to be successful a company must have the right product, sell it at the right price, in the right places, and with the right advertising and support. Hence, the four Ps are the main things to consider when marketing a product. They are a useful summary of the marketing mix - the actions and activities used in different combinations for different products and different customers.

Emirates is a fast-growing international airline operating the world’s largest fleets of Airbus A380 and Boeing 777 aircrafts. Of course, Emirates‘ main activity is the provision of commercial air transportation services. The following shows in which way Emirates uses the four Ps to deliver this service in order to achieve maximum customer satisfaction.

Product and PromotionAs the basic service or product of every airline is the same, e.g. transport people from one place to another, Emirates main focus lies on promotion. Promotion describes how the service will be supported with extra or special services.

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Emirates‘ main value driver is its inflight entertainment. This year, Emirates invested significantly to ensure its inflight entertainment systems “continue to set the highest standards at 30,000 feet.” In 2008, Emirates was the first airline to enable passengers to use mobile phones to send text messages and make calls during the flight. In 2013-14, they marked the one millionth mobile phone call, and the 13 millionth text message sent on board by their passengers, since the service was introduced. Additionally, Emirates offers “live” television channels, “so passengers can stay abreast of global news and sports events from the skies”. Emirates also expanded access to affordable high-speed connectivity for passengers in every cabin, so that passengers can browse the internet or stay in touch with friends and colleagues on their personal devices.

Another important extra service Emirates offers is its complementary chauffeur-drive service for business and first class guests. This service includes transport to and from the airport, at which customers are expected with fast check-in procedures to ensure maximum comfort.

To make the time at the airport as pleasant as possible, Emirates also keeps improving ist Airport Lounge Services. It invested EUR 3.8 million to upgrade the Emirates Lounge in Paris Charles De Gaulle airport, and began upgrading ist lounges in London Gatwick and Bangkok. These projects are part of a multi-million dollar refurbishment program to bring all of the 30-plus Emirates Lounges in their network to the same design experience as in their hub in Dubai International airport.

In conclusion, Emirates is committed to quality and customer experience throughout their customers entire travel experience. This starts with the booking of the ticket and ends with the customers save return to his or her home. Emirates extraordinary services were also recognised at the annual Skytrax awards in June, where Emirates was named “World’s Best Airline” and also won “Best Inflight Entertainment” for the ninth consecutive year.

PriceThe commercial air transportation market is considered to be one of the toughest markets in the world. The target group can usually choose between three different classes: first, business and economy class. Each class offers different services for a different price. The most basic one is the economy class. The most extravagant services are offered in First Class. The market participant with the lowest price within one price class usually reaches most customers. Therefore, for every airline, it is important to focus on the cost base, as a “skimming price”, for example, is highly unlikely.

Emirates poses a threat to its competitors as its cost base is much lower. The main reason is a lean workforce, comparable to a budget-carrier and a flat organizational structure that allows to maintain low overhead costs. Additionally the operating costs at Emirates Base in Dubai are much lower than those of their competitors in Europe. Since Dubai does not have any night flying restrictions, Emirates achieves a higher utilization which also concludes in higher profitability.

PlaceEmirates sells its services via three channels: online, in store or by phone. In general, online forms the major distribution channel. However, this varies from country to country.

The Middle East travel market still values the human touch. Emirates therefore invested to improve their travel-shop experience and ensure it is customer-centric.

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Western countries, however, prefer the comfort of online shopping. To satisfy this need, Emirates developed apps for Android and iOs smartphones and tablets.

For phone shopping Emirates announced a new, 300-seat customer contact centre in Budapest, to support thier future growth and enhance the language and response capabilities of their six other global customer service centres.

1.5. CompetitionAs an international luxury airline with its main hub in the Middle East, the two main

competitors for Emirates are Qatar Airways and Etihad. Both airlines also operate from the

Middle East and serve the same target market at Emirates. Other airlines which can also be

considered competition for Emirates include Lufthansa, AirFrance, Singapore Airlines and

Cathay Pacific.

Etihad Emirates QatarDestinations 791 1282 1243

Codesharing partners 41 15 14Passengers transported in 2013 11.5 million 39 million 18 million2013 growth in passenger transport 12% 16% 6%Fleet size 88 212 126revenue 62 million $ 65.4 million $ Over 10 bn $

It is obvious that according to these statistics Emirates still has the edge over its competitors.

Nevertheless, it should also be noticed that competition is intense; Etihad and Qatar are

rapidly catching up with the airline and Emirates has to invest significant efforts into

maintaining their market shared and standpoint in the luxury airline industry (Centre for

Aviation, 2014).

According to a ranking conducted by Skytrax, Emirates was ranked fourth in the list of

World’s best airlines 2014. Cathay Pacific, Qatar Airways and Singapore Airlines seized the

preceding spots of 1,2 and 3, respectively. Etihad only ranked 9th. This shows that the airline

apparently has a unique selling proposition over many others, but also faces tough

competition, especially from its direct geographical competitors (skytrax, 2014)

In 2014 Emirates was ranked the most valuable Airline brand in the Global 500 report by

Brand Finance. Criteria considered were the dollar value of company reputation, image and

intellectual property. Only six airlines made it into the top 500 most valuable brands,

Emirates being the airline ranked highest on the 234th spot. Emirates is valued at USD 5.48

billion. According to this ranking, the closest competitors are Delta Airlines with a brand value

of USD 4.47 billion, American Airline with a value of USD 4.56 billion and Lufthansa, with a

brand value of 4.17 billion (Kollau, 2014).

1 42 in Europe, 7 in Asia Pacific2 35 in Europe, 42 in Asia Pacific3 30 in Europe, 44 in Asia Pacific

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In order to determine the reason for emirate’s success the Point of Parity (POP) and Point of

Difference (POD) need to be analyzed. A product’s POD are the features that differentiate

the product from the competition and which make customers believe that the product is

superior to alternatives (Brandeo, 2014).

The core product for Emirates is long distance, international passenger flights. When

comparing to the main competitors mentioned above, POP are also a certain level of luxury

offered, especially in the first class, similar routes and the fact that Emirates, Qatar Airways

and Etihad are all based in the Middle East. In order to really set itself off from its competitors

it is essential for Emirates to establish a number of PODs or USP. One aspect where

Emirates really excels is service quality. Over the course of time Emirates has established a

reputation as an airline with excellent services, on-board as well as on ground. The in-flight

services Emirates offers are superlative to most other airlines. Even in economy class

passengers are offered a certain level of luxury, which is only to be found in the business

class of other airlines. Never compromising on quality and providing customers with a high

level of services which makes them come back is one of rules Emirates adheres to. Wealthy

customers value the luxurious amenities which are offered on board. The airline has an

onboard bar and spacious showers, where 25 minute slots can be booked. This is also

reflected in the size of the airport lounges, which cater to the needs of customers who do not

need to worry about money.

In contrast to Qatar Airways, Emirates and Etihad provide a first class option on all flight,

whereas Qatar Airways only does this on flights to and from London and Paris.

Another USP which is also worth mentioning is that Emirates is the only airline operating

flights to all six continents from one main hub in Dubai. At the moment, the superior size of

Emirates (larger fleet, higher number of destinations) can still be considered a POD, but it

remains to be seen how long this position can be maintained, since all the main competitors

are heavily investing in growth factors as well.

1.6. Brand PerformanceUp to now, Emirates is not the market leader in the global airline market based on sales and

it is even not listed in the top 10 (Statista, 2015). However, Emirates is the number one

airline comparing the brand value (Statista, 2015). Based on the “World Arline Awards 2014”,

published by the consultancy Skytrax, Emirates is ranked on place 4 in 2014 as seen in the

Appendix (Skytrax, 2014). Additionally, Emirates greatest hub in Dubai was able to improve

its rank from place 33 to 25 (Skytrax, 2014).

To calculate the market share, we divide the number of passengers that used Emirates by

the total worldwide number of passengers carried within a year. This results in an increase in

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market share from 1.2% in 2012 to 1.3% in 2013 and to 1.4% in 2014. For the actual

numbers, please refer to the appendix.

To get a better understanding of the brand performance, it is necessary to analyze the

financial highlights of Emirates. The first performance measurement is the total revenue.

According to the official annual report for the year 2013/2014, Emirates 80,717 million AED

(United Arab Emirates Dirham) which is equal to 21.974 million USD (Emirates2, 2014, p.

27). This represents an increase of 13,4% compared to the previous year. The main driver

for this was delivered by the passenger segment; thus representing the successful growth

strategy. This is also proved by the increasing number of total passengers. Emirates was

able to serve 44.5 million passengers in 2013-14 compared to 39.4 million in 2012-13

(Emirates2, 2014, p. 27). The analysis of the revenue provides an insight of the current

importance of each regional market. About 60% of its revenue was earned in Europe and

East Asia/Australia and only 10% in each of the other regions, namely Americas, Gulf and

Middle East, West Asia and Indian Ocean, and Africa (Emirates2, 2014, p. 27). Another

evidence for the improved performance is the revenue per employee, which increased

1,868,000 AED to 1,938,000 AED (Emirates2, 2014, p. 31).

Another important measure is the Operating Profit. In that year it was 4.3 billion AED; a rise

by more than 50%. This also boosted the profit margin up to 3.9% (Emirates2, 2014, p. 27).

For Further recommendations, it is also important to have a view on the degree of capacity

utilization which is describes by the Passenger Seat Factor. As it can be seen in Appendix,

this number was 79.4% which is a minor decrease by 0.3% (Emirates2, 2014, p. 27).

However, the analysis of the balance sheet shows that Emirates could experience some

financing problems in the case that interest rates were increasing. The debt ratio (total

liabilities / total assets) reaches almost 75% and therefore, most of its assets and operations

are financed by loans and other debts (Emirates2, 2014, p. 29).

Analyzing the last three financial periods of Emirates, it was able to improve its results from

2011 to 2014. Revenue, Operating Profit, Profit Margin, and Passenger numbers increased.

In addition, Emirates expanded its network of available destinations and the number of its

airplanes. Therefore, the company seems to be on the right track presenting a positive trend.

(Emirates2, 2014, pp. 27-31)

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2. Brand Meaning Audit

2.1. Web researchSince Emirates is an airline and thus does not provide products, but services only to a certain small percentage of the population, it was not easy to find information on the internet in terms of opinions or associations people have about Emirates. The website which was most helpful here was Skytrax.

2626 customers wrote about their experience on Skytrax and also rated the airline there:

In order to get an overview of aspects people liked and disliked we assembled a table containing the opinions of the last 30 reviews posted on the site. (bear in mind that the majority of people who are dissatisfied state their opinions and only a small part of those who liked the airline do not say anything):

Positive negativeLounge very good. Local food, wide range (3) Staff poor (long time to come when needed, are

chatting with each other a lot) (6)Seats comfortable (6) Seats are uncomfortable (3)Entertainmentsystem plenty of options (6) Service passable (2)Punctuality Food average (3)Good food (5) priceGood drinks (1) Service prior to flightFirst class with private suite, luxuryService (5)clean(Forum airlinequality, 2014)

When evaluating the table we assembled it becomes obvious that the level of comfort offered by Emirates and their entertainment system might me features setting the airline apart from competitors. Even though the majority of the answers evaluated talked about Emirates in a positive way, a poor quality of service of service was mentioned strikingly often. This might be a point of improvement for Emirates.

In regard to facebook likes, Emirates has a decent performance. The company has more than three times as many like as Singapore Airlines and Etihad, but is 2 Million likes behind Qatar Airways (see figure 1 appendix).On the facebook page customers can find information about sponsorship involvements or additions to their fleet.

Web research showed that of the people who visit the website, little more than 50% of are female. Most of them are well educated, having completed graduate school. The majority of people access the site from school. The second most common browsing location was work, followed by home (see appendix 4) (Alexa, 2014).

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People who visit the website come from various geographic locations. 42.3% of the visitors come from either the US (14.2%), India (9%), UAE (8.9%), UK (6.4%) or Saudi Arabia (3.8%) (see appendix 2). Each visitor spends an average of 7.25 minutes on the website per day (see appendix 16) (Alexa, 2014).

As visible in appendix 5 and 6, most visitors to the website are directed there from search engines such as google or yahoo (Alexa, 2014). Idea for improvement: redirect more from other sites, which are not search engines. This is one area of improvement we detected during our web research.

A total of 8,449 sites link to the emirate’s website (see appendix 7). The sites related to emirates.com are mostly sites of other airlines (see appendix 8) (Alexa, 2014).

It takes 4.245 seconds to load emirates.com. 89% of sites are faster (see appendix 6). For an airline that strives to convey professionalism and luxury, this can definitely be considered a negative point.

In today’s world a ubiquitous presence of a company on the internet can contribute significantly to a company’s success. This is why we conducted some research on the areas of the web where Emirates is present.

Marketing grader mentions five areas where customers might want to find information on a company: Blogs, social media, SEO, Lead generation and mobile. Since Emirates has a twitter account, a facebook page and links to social media accounts from their homepage, they fulfill all the requirements for social media (see fig. 14). The same can be said about SEO; the add alt tags to their images, use page titles without the company name and have unique page descriptions (see fig. 11). Emirates is one aspect short of fulfilling all the requirement for a complete Lead generation presence. They did not yet set up marketing automation (see fig. 12). The company provides a mobile version of their website, but has not yet introduced a meta viewport tag (see fig. 13) (Marketing grader, 2014).

Emirates invested heavily in advertisement during the world cup 2014 in Brazil, which lead to a successful third rank in number of mentions of World Cup sponsors in Facebook and Twitter since June 12 (see fig. 15) (Cohen, 2014).

At the moment, tripadvisor is one of the most popular sites to check on before going on vacation. This is why a good rating there will only be beneficial to a company. Tripadvisor has a rating of three out of five possible points (1236 ratings, 5th November 2014), of which 71% would recommend the airline to others. They perform very well in the categories Check-in experience, punctuality, baggage handling, in-flight service and inflight amenities. Areas of improvement seem to be value, seat comfort and reasonableness of fees (see appendix 3). (Tripadvisor, 2014)

In order to gain an in-depth knowledge about the perception of Emirates as a brand, our team conducted an exploratory interview. The methodology is as follows. We interviewed 11 people out of the target market and asked them questions in form of a structured interview. As we described the target market of Emirates as cosmopolitan and dynamically, we tried to focus on interviews with globally oriented businessmen and businesswomen. We used our business contacts and conducted personal interviews with several persons of this background (for more information see appendix XX). The interview was conducted in a face-to-face-manner in order to receive spontaneous and reliable

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responses. In order to listen to the answers again and note the answers thoroughly, 10 out of 11 interviews were recorded (1 interviewee refused – responses were written down).

Our qualitative research covers a wide range of interviewing techniques as described in the following: The first three questions focus on the (academic) background of the respondent. This information helps to interpret the answers and check for similarities among same categories of respondents. The fourth question forces the interviewee to think about distinctive features among different airlines. Thereby, the respondent does preliminary work for the following question where he or she is asked to think about features that he or she specifically values for the brand Emirates. In the next question, the laddering technique is used to better understand why these features are especially important for the interviewee. Next, we used free association to find out about the first impressions that come to mind when thinking about the airline market and Emirates in particular. Another tool we used to derive the brand meaning to the customer was the projective technique. The interviewed people were asked, which type of car and food Emirates would be. For some people it is easier to express their opinions and feelings by referring to things that are very common for them. Therefore, this kind of question technique appeals to them and gives meaningful responses to work with.

2.2. Qualitative Research

2.3. Quantitative Research??

2.4. Brand Positioning Statement

3. Challenges and Recommendations

Fidi:

1. Even though the majority of the answers evaluated talked about Emirates in a positive way, a poor quality of service was mentioned strikingly often. This might be a point of improvement for Emirates.

2. As visible in appendix 5 and 6, most visitors to the website are directed there from search engines such as google or yahoo (Alexa, 2014). Idea for improvement: redirect more from other sites, which are not search engines.

3. It takes 4.245 seconds to load emirates.com. 89% of sites are faster (see appendix 6). For an airline that strives to convey professionalism and luxury, this can definitely be considered a negative point.

4. Areas of improvement seem to be value, seat comfort and reasonableness of fees (see appendix 3). (Tripadvisor, 2014)

Andi:

1. Emirates faces a great competition throughout the whole aviation market. It should therefore strengthen its position in the current markets (Europe, South-East Asia) but also try to find partners in other regions such as North and South America. Americas’ low portion of

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revenue of the whole Emirates revenue is an indicator of a low market share. Additionally, Central and West Asia could be an interesting market referring to the positive development of the two largest economies China and India. Due to the local and international competition, Emirates needs to undertake strong marketing efforts to improve its brand position, reach the audience and to gain market share.

4. Appendix

Figure 1: The largest airlines worldwide in 2013, based on sales (Statista, 2015)

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Figure 2: The leading airlines worldwide in 2014, ranked by brand value (Statista, 2015)

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Figure 3: World’s Top 100 Airlines – 2014 (Skytrax, 2014) Figure 4: World’s Top 100 Airports – 2014 (Skytrax, 2014)

Figure 5: Emirates Passenger numbers in millions (Emirates2, 2014, p. 27)

Year Number of Passengers worldwide2012 2.9 billion2013 3.1 billion2014 3.2 billionTable 1: Number of Passengers Worldwide (International Civil Aviation Organization, 2012) (International Civil Aviation Organization, 2013) (International Civil Aviation Organization, 2014)

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Figure 6: Emirates Revenue 2013/14 (Emirates2, 2014, p. 27)

Figure 7: Emirates Geographical Revenue (Emirates2, 2014, p. 27)

Figure 8: Emirates Geographical Revenue (Emirates2, 2014, p. 27)

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Figure 9: Emirates Revenue per airline employee (Emirates2, 2014, p. 31)

Figure 10: Emirates Operating Profit (Emirates2, 2014, p. 27)

Figure 11: Emirates Profit Margin (Emirates2, 2014, p. 27)

Figure 12: Emirates Passenger Sear Factor (degree of capacity utilization) (Emirates2, 2014, p. 27)

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Figure 13: Emirates balance Sheet (Emirates2, 2014, p. 35)

Figure 14: Emirates Equity (Emirates2, 2014, p. 29)

Brand Facebook likes Twitter followers Google hitsEmirates 3.799.872 177,000 39,000,000Etihad 1,081,971 122,000 1,600,000Qatar airways 5,921,962 384,000 3,600,000Cathay Pacific 929,632 132,000 2,480,000Singapore airlines 1,127,342 138,000 1,760,000Lufthansa 1,782,025 84,100 48,400,000Figure 15: facebook likes 11.05.2014

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Figure 16: location of visiors

Figure 17: tripadvisor

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Figure 18: visitors

Figure 19: links

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Figure 20: search engines

Figure 21: sites linking in

Figure 22: related sites

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Figure 23: other websites

Figure 24: Marketing grader

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Figure 25: SEO

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Figure 26: Lead Generation

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Figure 27: Mobile

Figure 28: Social Media

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Figure 29: Sponsors World Cup

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Figure 30: average time

5. References

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