Counterintuity - Creative Marketing Made Fresh

It’s easy to get stuck, while everything around you changes. Just keep doing what you’ve been doing, and don’t look around.

The major airlines are stuck in the 1970′s. (Or some other previous era.) Don’t believe it? Fly one of them — and then fly Virgin America, as I did last week.

The proof is in the pictures. Here’s your typical cabin on a United Airways flight.

Here’s your typical cabin on a Virgin flight.

It’s not just that United has older tech (such as older planes with bad lighting and limited screening capability). It’s not just that United (and others) have a look/feel that goes with that mustard-colored living room paint of the Carter years. It’s that as a people we have undergone major cultural changes that the major airlines seem oblivious to:

• The major carriers have waiters and waitresses (they call them flight attendants) who come around, eventually, to take your order, and then return, eventually with it. On Virgin, you place your order on your personal screen and it’s brought to you. Rather promptly.
• The majors have Politburo-like programming: You will watch this news feature, then this sitcom, then you will watch this movie, each of our choosing. On Virgin, you have your pick of dozens of different offerings, including video games, music, music videos, free movies, paid movies, free TV, paid TV, and on-screen print. Email and web browsing are soon to follow.

United is regimenting behavior. Virgin understands that today consumers expect more choices, they expect those choices to be attractive, and otherwise they want to be left alone.

Like other fading monopolies, the only advantage that United and the other major carriers have is that they are everywhere. (And no, price is not in their favor — the flight on Virgin cost hundreds of dollars less than comparable flights.) Virgin America and JetBlue fly to only a few markets. So these boutique carriers are eating the best portions — selected profitable and desirable high-traffic lanes — and leaving the gruel to others. It’s easy to see how this happened: Times changed, and the bigger players were slow to respond. (Like IBM once upon a time, and GM, and many long-gone major department stores.)

Is this happening to your own business?

Take a walk around. Have the needs of your customers/patrons changed? Are your competitors adapting faster than you? What’s going on that you’re not (yet) aware of? Are you still rooted in the actions of the past, and how can you get out of there and into a better future?