Traveling through the airport yesterday afternoon I started to think about the "Airport" as a brand. If you stop and think about it, "The Airport" is a microcosm for what your brand faces in the real marketplace.
There are high-end and low-end brands right next to each other, the owners of each airport have their own way of running things so the customer experience is always different, your luggage gets lost and no one seems to care, the food you eat at the airport (any food) is awful, the bathrooms seem like something out of a refugee camp, the weather can ground you and it's not "their" fault, cab drivers are yelling for you to get in their car, etc... I hope you get the point.
When people say "I hate airports", they mean the whole package. It's this way because over time a lot of small decisions have been made and the result is a bad stew. No one can pinpoint the cause, but no one likes the taste.
No matter how much you try to manage your brand image, the delivery system that is the airport, makes it a wasted exercise. When brands try to build distribution quickly by using sales networks, independent reps and outside facilities, you may end up as the "Airport". Band-aid after band-aid work for a while, but at some point you have to sit down and say it's time for major surgery. Your delivery system is the way consumers see your brand and you have no control over 90% of their experience.
As marketers we have to find a way through the clutter, but working day in and day out in a broken system is futile. Think of new ways to deliver your message and your product. It's an uphill climb but at some point you have to change what isn't working around you.
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