Emirates Airlines

"Know you before they trust you, trust you before they fly you."

This was the sales pitch to Emirates Airline executives used by Bob Minihan of ISM Travel Lifestyle Marketing. Imagine one of the most premier luxury business class airliners, Emirates Airlines in the world attempting to penetrate an entirely new market. Imagine this market being the United States of America, the largest economical power in the world. Imagine the date of the planned marketing push: March 1st, 2002; just 6 months after 9/11/2001.

As an airline based in the United Arab Emirates, and its international hub being the bustling, booming city of Dubai, Emirates had a lot going for it during the summer of 2001. It enjoyed a 95% booking rate on all of its major international flights out of Dubai. Its customer service was ranked among the best in the world and its airlines were rated 5 star ultra luxury. They were one of the most desired airline to fly on by the most prestigous businesspeople in the world, and they were the fastest growing airline in the Middle East. Then 19 men from the Middle East hijacked 4 airplanes and created one of the most unfortunate and tragic days in the United States history.

Emirates Airlines had no idea how to enter the US market at this point. This is when they turned to Boston's top marketing agency, ISM, to prepare them for penetration in the US, and most importantly convince American citizens that this airline was 100% safe, reliable and unique.

I had the pleasure of attending a presentation at an American Marketing Association meeting in Providence two nights ago. Bob Minihan represented his company, and made a truly fascinating presentation on repositioning Emirates Airlines and marketing them in America post-9/11. He gave us a brief background on his company, and the other accounts they have, such as Four Seasons Hotels. He is a photographer, which made for some incredible shots of him and his team in Dubai on their multiple visits for photo shoots and meetings with Emirates executives. He had absolutely no prior knowledge of UAE or Dubai for that matter, and I found his perspective on his first experiences very interesting. He discussed the tremendous urban development, such as the Palm Islands, the Burj al Arab and the Burj Dubai, the 7 star hotel that he had the fortunate opportunity to stay in. Bob mentioned how congested the streets of Dubai were; that they had not planned an efficient transportation infrastructure during the the construction boom, and that it often took over one and a half hours to get from one end of the city to the other. He enjoyed his tour guides, and sticking to true Middle Eastern tradition, he and his crew were chauffeured around the city, exposed to all of the major sights and sounds, and experienced the lifestyle of pampered tourists days before the actual business negotiations took place.

The nightlife was incredible, and he had the opportunity to speak with many locals concerning their perspective on America, and American commerce. He found that "Dubaians" have issues with America, but not with Americans. He was well received, and treated with tremendous respect. He also noted that shopping in Dubai is a national hobby. He attended the Dubai Shopping Festival at 11PM one evening, and noted that everything and everyone was entirely in order. He attributed this conduct to the fact that not many people drink in Dubai. There were no shortages of incrediblly state of the art bars, but most of the dominant religions in the city, Islam and Hindu, forbid the use of alcoholic beverages. Bob had a successful meeting with the executive at Emirates, and returned to the states with a multi million dollar account, and the most grueling marketing project he had ever taken charge of.

ISM's plan was to begin their marketing push by holding a handful of focus groups in New York City. The participants were all businesspeople, who generally fly business class on international flights. Bob showed us clips from one of the focus groups, and it was evident that there was significant distrust, fear and uncertainty among the participants concerning an "Arabic airline." They asked, "how do I know who is flying the plane?" and "why would I chose an airline from the Middle East where the 9/11 terrorists came from when I can chose an Asian or a European carrier?" All of these were valid questions, but some statements were more intense, including, "I refuse to fly on Emirates because I would feel as if everyone working on the plane is a terrorist." It was apperent that New Yorkers posessed a lot of hatred, and mainly fear cocnerning anything Middle East-oriented, and the they had a lot of difficult work to do. Emirates main focus was initiating non-stop service from NYC to Dubai, posing an even more difficult obstacle, getting through to New Yorkers who just witnessed, many first hand, the attacks just 6 months ago. How could they convince Americans to fly on Emirates?

I am currently in contact with Bob Minihan, and will soon be posting some of the incredible Emirates advertisements used post 9/11 in America during this marketing campaign. It was unfortunate that Bob and his marketing team had to work so hard to reposition such a wonderful company in America, but the circumstances were understandable. Their first ad campanigns included showing the pilots of Emirates Airlines walking around New York City. The pilots represent over 90 nationalities, with a majority being highly experienced veterans from British Airways. Bob flew one pilot, an Australian who flew with British for 26 years, to New York for a photo shoot. This was the beginning of the campaign, and a healthy start to penetrating New York City. Another idea was to show the multinational/multilingual crew of Emirates in other ads. They showed photographs of two beautiful flight attendents onboard an Emirates flight, both originally from California, in another ad. These ads would answer the question "who is flying this plane?" and "who is working to make my flight the best possible experience?"

The campaign was turning into more of an educational repositioning of the brand. ISM quickly began to saturate the New York market with images and phrases of Emirates Airlines. Emirates felt that it was time to initiate their non-stop service from NYC, and opened 5 daily flights between NYC and Dubai soon thereafter. ISM bought out Grand Central Station for one entire month, and New Yorkers were bombarded with over 3000 different ads for the airlines. One month later, the nonstop service out of New York was flying with over 90% booked capacity.
Emirates is now the fastest growing airline in the world, and when interviewed, 99% of first time flyers said that they would fly again. Emirates now flies non stop out of Toronto, Canada and Houston. They are planning a non stop out of LAX in the next few months. They just made a purchase of 50 Airbus A380s a few months ago, and will boast the world's largest fleet of this superjet. The next closest airline with the most A380's is Singapore, with 2. Emirates will be the first airline to bring the A380 to America this fall.

Bob and his team did a successful job of repositioning Emirates, and letting America know that Emirates is "not an Arab airline, but an international airline based in the Middle East." Bob is proactively working on the American Emirates account, but his work greatly influences other international marketing agencies that create campaigns for Emirates as well. In fact, the local Dubai marketing campaign recently boasted a 70 story high poster of the Statue of Liberty on the side of a building currently under construction promoting the non stop service from Dubai to NYC.

Other international agencies do not have any problems marketing Emirates in their countries, because 9/11 did not happen anywhere else. Americans also hold grudges and are greatly influenced by the media which generate stereotypical mentalities and are generally the origin of much racism present in the mainstream today. British citizens enjoy dozens of non stop Emirates flights every day to Dubai, as the most tourists in Dubai originate in the UK. Other nations don't have a problem with the Middle East; we do.

More on the ISM Emirates marketing campaign and images later.

-KD