Virgin America: Flight Service For The Tech-Savvy
There are far more failures among airline startups than there are successes. And in the past few decades, the most notable successes have pursued a low-cost/low-fare model (think Southwest, Allegiant, Spirit, Frontier, etc.). Virgin America demonstrated that there is room in the market for an airline that doesn’t try to beat the competition by offering the lowest price, but by offering the best service and the most appealing amenities. Virgin America succeeded by doing these things and by targeting the right customer, and subsequently was absorbed into the Alaska Airlines network after being bought in 2016 and the brand name retired in 2017. Review the brief on Virgin America on page 303 of the text and do a basic internet search to learn more about the factors behind the Virgin America brand. These two links should help get your started in background information.
https://www.virgin.com/virgingroup/case-study-4
https://florence20.typepad.com/files/virgin-case-study.pdf
Respond to the following questions through a cohesive minimum 500 word answer:
- Using the full spectrum of segmentation variables, describe how Virgin America segmented and targeted the market for airline services.
- What did Virgin America doing to create brand equity for its airline.
- What brand elements did the organization apply across the various other services it provides?
- Write a positioning statement for Virgin America if it were to re-emerge as its own brand.