Malaysia’s low-cost carrier AirAsia is embracing e-commerce in a big way to enhance its branding and to expand its customer base, and it has not looked back since it started its social media journey 18 months ago.

Kathleen Tan, AirAsia’s regional head of commercial, said that the airline’s social media customer base comprised  Gen X and Y as well as silver surfers. When AirAsia started on the journey it was a case of “try, test, fail and try again”.

Pictured left: Branding & Marketing in the C of Change

“We opened a can of worms when we launched our Facebook page. While it generates a lot of queries it also led to lots of complaints,” said Tan.

Despite the initial rough and tumble AirAsia has no regrets with using Facebook in its branding. To date it is just 40,000 short of one million fans.

AirAsia’s Facebook is in seven countries, each with localised content. Tan said the site is not only a good branding tool but also a platform for informing its fans on happenings around the world that could affect travel, such as the Icelandic volcanic ash calamity.

AirAsia’s Facebook’s fans consist of two types – voyageurs who peep but do not commit and the shy surfers who hide behind social media and are champions over cyberspace.

AirAsia has also recently upgraded its website to introduce innovative feature such as “Manage my booking” where a customer can check his/her booking, change itinerary, check in via the web and numerous other functions. It has a dedicated team working on its website 24/7.

The airline is also turning to Twitter and to mobile as Tan believes the latter is a way of the future allows consumers to choose what suits them best.

Pictured right: AirAsia’s Kathleen Tan 

Hotels, on the other hand, may not be as swift as airlines to adopt social media in its branding but they are realising its importance and are slowly but surely adopting it.

Frank Trampert, who was former EVP, revenue generation, Asia Pacific of Carlson Hotels Worldwide, said branding has not been never been all about control but about engagement.

“We understand our customers and are soft-talking to them.”

National tourism boards such as Singapore Tourism Board (STB) has seen great success in terms of tourism arrival and tourism receipts using the online space to market its brand, says Chang Chee Pey, STB’s director, brand management (pictured left).

“Your Singapore”, which STB launched earlier this year, utilises the web to highlight the various attractions, events and hotels in the city state, and allows visitors to personalise their travel itinerary. It also enables transactons through a meta search engine powered by Wego.

Tourism Australia is also a believer in Social Media in pushing its branding through the “There’s Nothing Like Australia”’ campaign. “We embrace social media and through it we can tell stories,” said Nick Baker, Tourism Australia’s executive general manager-marketing.

The NTO is also looking towards mobile for branding and marketing, especially in Asia. “We’re still working out how it works in telling stories,” says Baker.

The Wotif Group is also keen to utilise social marketing but is not in a big hurry.

Matthew Varley, Wotif’s executive general manager-Asia, says this is because its strategising with Yahoo and Google has generated lots of revenue for the company and is trackable.

The company currently has a large research and marketing team, and is in the process of building a social marketing team.

Carl Griffith (pictured left), managing director of Cloud View in the panel as a customer, hopes that more and more companies will adopt AirAsia’s model in social media marketing. He does not mind surrendering his personal information to such companies leveraging on social media for marketing and branding “as they anticipate my needs and provide me with useful information on their products.”

The panellists were also asked how their marketing funds would shift from 2010 to 2015 and most indicated a shift towards digital, social media and mobile.

“Social Media and mobile will be big for us,” reiterated Tan.

The airline will allocate 50% of its advertising spend through Facebook. It will build on our internal asserts, parking Flickr, YouTube, Facebook and Foursquare on one site,” said Tan, who noted that AirAsia was becoming a media owner owning its own media asset.

On one line to describe the future of branding and marketing, this is what they said.

Trampert: “Digital media, there is no brand without it.”

Tourism Australia’s Baker: “Tell your story.”

Cloud View’s Griffith: “Give me what I want.”

Wotif’s Varley: “Nobody like you.”

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