MAS' flawed campaign

Malaysia Airlines' (MAS) latest print campaign to promote its new low fares has to be one of the most stupid marketing campaigns I have ever seen.

And that does mean something because prior to joining Flight International magazine six years ago, I was a journalist at Asia's leading advertising and marketing industry magazine MEDIA so I have seen a lot of ad campaigns in my time.

But MAS' latest campaign takes the cake.

The ads look like AirAsia ads and now MAS' CEO, Idris Jala, has even taken to dressing like AirAsia's group CEO, Tony Fernandes.

Fernandes must be having a good chuckle right now over MAS' attempt at marketing.

AirAsia is very much a marketing driven company and Fernandes is a CEO who prides himself on being an astute marketer.

The fact that MAS has made the mistake of mimicking AirAsia's ads means MAS is failing to clearly differentiate its brand and will be seen in the market as a 'me too' product.

There is also a very real danger that MAS' ads will inadvertently help to increase AirAsia's sales.

Consumers - unlike marketers - don't spend hours analysing ads.

People often only spend a split second looking at an ad and what they notice is the general look and feel of an ad rather than the fine print.

If someone is quickly flicking through a newspaper and sees these ads, there is a real danger they will confuse it with an AirAsia ad.

And even if they see the ad and notice it is for MAS they will still be thinking of AirAsia because the ads draw on AirAsia's branding ie. the white and red colors and the type face used in the MAS ads are indicative of AirAsia.

Finally, MAS' ads don't work to promote MAS but are instead working to promote the idea of low cost travel.

In other words it is promoting the category rather than the brand and because AirAsia is the leader of the low-cost market category it could benefit the most from these ads.

It reminds me of a scenario that happened in Australia about 12 years ago when Red Rooster - Australia's equivalent to KFC Chicken - launched a multi-million dollar ad campaign that failed to promote the Red Rooster brand and instead only worked to promote the idea that people should eat take-away chicken.

Sales of Red Rooster's major competitor - Chicken Treat - went through the roof.

The ad agency that came with the dud campaign eventually lost the Red Rooster account. I suspect the same will happen to whoever came up with the ill-conceived MAS campaign.

MAS poised to order up to 55 narrowbodies

Malaysia Airlines (MAS) later today plans to announce an order for narrowbody aircraft and it is expected to be for Boeing 737-800s.

The national carrier has earlier said it is evaluating 737 next generation aircraft and Airbus A320s and would make a decision in this year's first half.

A source at MAS tells me that the airline will be making an announcement today on aircraft but it will wait until the Kuala Lumpur stock exchange closes.

The source was responding to reports in the Malaysian newspapers - quoting from unnamed sources - saying the airline plans to buy as many 55 737-800s with first deliveries to start in 2011.

It will announce the deal today, say the reports.

MAS currently operates 37 Boeing 737-400s on domestic and short-haul routes but these aircraft are around 16 years old.

This is too old considering its major competitor is AirAsia which operates new A320s.

AirAsia has said publicly that having new aircraft has proven a boon for its business because new aircraft are more reliable to operate and consume less fuel.

If MAS orders 737-800s, as expected, it will have to wait a few years for the aircraft to arrive from Boeing.

But it could speed up its aircraft fleet renewal by getting some 737-800s on lease sooner.