Marketing Strategy of Southwest Air Lines

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• Product Positioning: Operating under an intensely competitive environment, Southwest Airlines carefully projects its image so customers can differentiate its product from its competitors. Southwest positions itself in all its marketing communications as THE only low-fare, short-haul, high-frequency, point-to-point carrier in America that is fun to fly. Its low-priced fares are a brand equity which it "owns" in the mathematical sense of being the only major airline with a strong score on this attribute based on consumer research (Barlow, 2002). Southwest’s brand exudes an element of fun: a down-home attitude which it leverages to present the consequences of low fares in a positive light. "Dignify" might not be the first word one would think of to describe how Southwest treats passengers: no first class; no food other than peanuts; no assigned seats; no transfers of luggage to other airlines (Teitelbaum, 1992). Southwest’s in-flight service has, in fact, become pejoratively synonymous with peanuts; but the payoff in savings is huge. While the average cost of serving meals per passenger in the industry is about $5, Southwest’s average cost per passenger is only 20 cents (Rose, 1999). • Market Positioning Strategies: To successfully secure its market position, Southwest needs to be extremely cost-efficient. Southwest has a well defined business model that uses single aircraft type, short-hauls, secondary airports, point-to-point versus hub-and-spoke to keep its costs down. Southwest tries hard to differentiate itself by doing seemingly weird things. For example, not assigning seats in its flights helps to reinforce its image that it gets passengers to their destinations when they want to get there, on time, at the lowest possible fares. By not assigning seats, Southwest can turn the airplanes quicker at the gate. If an airplane can be turned quicker, more routes can

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