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Article: Brand confusion with 9W

 
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Nimish
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 03, 2009 12:57 pm    Post subject: Article: Brand confusion with 9W Reply with quote

From: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/catalyst/2009/09/03/stories/2009090350080200.htm

Quote:

Why is my favourite brand going downhill?

by: Ramanujam Sridhar

Jet Airways, which stood for smart and courteous service, now seems to have hit an air-pocket..

I have always been a great admirer of Jet Airways. I have had nothing but praise for this company that to me and several others epitomises world-class service. I have featured the brand in my writings and talked about it in seminars. When journalists ask me plaintively whether any Indian brand can be a force globally I speak with conviction about Infosys and Jet. Nor have I been alone or unique in this, as anyone who has travelled by the airline usually compares it favourably with other international airlines that they have travelled by. Jet stands for smart service delivered courteously time after time without being in-your-face.
...
The problem with Jet now is that I do not know what to expect. The biggest problem seems to be that there are hardly any Jet Airways flights to travel by today or maybe I am not travelling at the times and to the places they want me to. I used to have a convenient flight out of Bangalore leaving at 7 a.m. which would enable me to do a full day’s work at Mumbai and return by a flight which left Mumbai at 8.10 p.m.

I would land at Bengaluru International Airport (what a grandiose name for such a teeny-weeny thing) at 9.30 p. m. Of course, I would reach home after 11.30 p.m. but then those are the advantages of having an airport that is closer to Hyderabad than Bangalore! I have realised to my chagrin that this 7 a.m. flight has become a Jet Konnect flight which used to be Jetlite or Sahara (how confusing can it get).

Nor does the confusion stop there. I get a message even earlier saying that I have to buy breakfast and will not be allowed to use the lounge at the airport. In contrast when I do travel by Kingfisher Red (which is Air Deccan), I get to use the lounge where I normally stuff myself and also get complimentary snacks (this will almost certainly take that brand further into the red but that is another story).
...
But whilst they are looking at ways of economising are they losing out on the very essence of the brand?
...
When will brands realise that the enemy of customer service is the term ‘company policy’? And outsourcing means the entire problem of the service provider comes back to the brand.
...
But Jet is no ordinary brand, in my view, at least. It has the capability of holding aloft the banner of service brands in this country and across the world. It needs to do some serious soul-searching and quickly understand from its consumers as to what they think of the brand now. Are they still using it? Are they quietly suffering? For there are many others who may quietly walk away into the sunset and that could hurt the brand even more.
....
My overriding regret, though, is for the brand which is letting the times get to it and runs the risk of losing its very essence. Did you have a similar experience? Then tell me about it.
...
(Ramanujam Sridhar is CEO, brand-comm, and the author of Googly - Branding on Indian Turf.)


I've posted only selected excerpts, recommend reading the full article. I hear this confusion on the brands (and the disappointment of being on 9W Konnect on most flights) from my friends as well...
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Spiderguy252
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 03, 2009 1:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Very nice. So he appears to hate 9W Konnect........yeah well, there's a recession going on.
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Nimish
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 03, 2009 1:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Spiderguy252 wrote:
Very nice. So he appears to hate 9W Konnect........yeah well, there's a recession going on.


It's not so much about hating Konnect. It's about wondering what happened to the brand built over all these years. Will that brand retain the same values?

If you did a quiz last year on the brand perception of 9W - you'd get a certain response from the market. Do that same exercise next year and you'll probably get a totally different response. Neither of them is right or wrong, but a very strong brand is being gradually changed to something the opposite of what the brand stood for. Kind of like brand of Surf vs. Nirma - both are strong, but you can't imagine Surf being Nirma or vice versa...
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me111993
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PostPosted: Sun Sep 06, 2009 5:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Even I am a great admirer of 9W. However, launching 9W Konnect had become much more of a necessity then an experiment, my dad has been travelling on 9W since almost 1995, and said that he had never seen load factors as low as they were. After 9W Konnect he says load-fators have improved greately( he does almost 2-3 round trips weekly, mostly to BOM from AMD, my house..) 9W had 6 flights daily from AMD to BOM, no there are , 4 of them being 9W Konnect, but he gets lounge access as well as ears the same points he earned before 9W flights were changed to 9W Konnect...

Personally I think 9W Konnect was a gem of a idea from the 9W think-tank.
Cheers!!!
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