This entry demonstrates how a UK based PR and marketing services consultancy recognised that there was much more to a corporate identity programme than a logo, and in particular for an airport management company competing for business in a globally changing marketplace where fees and revenue depend on much more than air fares and landing fees. By understanding the market pressures facing Maldives Airports Company, which competes with other regional airports, Montpellier was able to revolutionise the way the company carries out its business and the way it thinks about itself, underpinning its very survival in age of consolidation and takeovers in this niche marketplace.
The background to this campaign is the global acceleration of air travel and the consolidation of airport management companies in the world, who generate revenue through a combination of landing fees, aircraft fuel and maintenance, air traffic control, catering and of course retail income streams through duty free. Maldives Airport Company (MAC) had been a public sector company with many of the cultural and management challenges of companies that emerge out of the public sector but with the threat of competing business from neighbouring and other airports, particularly in terms of the ancillary services that could be provided by any airport on the route of a long or short-haul flight plan. A key challenge for MAC is to compete with the nearby facilities in Sri Lanker, particularly through Columbo Airport, which has developed as a hub beneath Dubai where it can attract significant revenue opportunities.
To secure its commercial future, the airport knew it urgently need to ensure its services for airlines were top quality and effectively promoted that the experience of consumers coming through the airport was second to none. As a public company which in the past keen not to be a victim of complacency, this represented both an external and internal PR challenge. In visiting the Maldives in December 2005 and taking a brief for a new corporate brand, the Montpellier team recognised the potential for a broader marketing communications programme and the importance of the branding in both inspiring and exciting both employees and customers, but also in terms of business-to-business marketing to the airline customer group.
The new corporate branding for the Maldives Airport needed to:
• Reflect the Maldives Airport as a destination associated with a modern, progressive
and prestige experience for air passengers
• Underpin the internal communications changes necessary for customer focused
and energised workforce which suffered at times from pressures of public sector
lethargy and complacency
• Demonstrate to airlines that the Maldives Airport could offer some of the best airport
and ‘apron’ services available in the Indian Ocean region.
The visual expression of the new corporate identity focused on a key image of the island; a palm tree. The airport was represented in a visual metaphor through the palm tree leaning out over the water representing a plane taking off. A key element of the brand is the strap line ‘Your journey: Our Business’ to underpin the internal and external communications messages.
A website is under construction, which Montpellier (through its sister company Montpellier Interactive) will become an electronic portal through which airlines and private pilots (which include Michael Schumacher!) can replace traditional paper and fax based documentation will soon be undertaken completely online, functionality that no other airport in the region currently possesses. Meanwhile, with the travelling public in mind, Montpellier recommended that as an extension of the brand identity, the whole real-estate of departures and arrivals lounges become filled with giant fish tanks to become the only aquarium airport in the world and a genuinely unique experience for the hundreds of thousands that visit the Maldives every year.
The new branding was successfully launched in April 2006 and tied it into the airport’s 40th anniversary celebrations. It was also the preface to a host of initiatives we proposed as part of a wider PR-led brief incorporating the latest design and interactive technology. For consumers the new web site when complete will also drive SMS alerts to passengers letting them know when to check in and progress on flight departure times. There will also be up to the minute information on weather conditions and events on the islands.
This campaign perfectly represents Montpellier’s PR-led approach with clients which, time and again, ensure that the consultancy team deliver creative and effective solutions to specific and often challenging issues. As design, the visual interpretation of the branding represents the start of this process and clearly demonstrates how the account team seized the opportunity to deliver a programme which is iterally transforming the way the airport does its business. It also represents sound commercial acumen in identifying the opportunity to sell in additional consultancy services and an ongoing relationship at the heart of the business.
Masood Imad, director of MAC, said: “Originally the brief was substantially a creative one but we were extremely impressed in the way Montpellier took the challenges that faced us to a new level and recommended opportunities available to us through on-line and off-line technology. Faced with internal communications challenges, Montpellier’s excellent branding work has also helped us to imbue greater pride in its customer focus for the 1000 strong workforce. We are pleased we chose a British consultancy ”