The Ambient Airport
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What would the ultimate branded airport look like? We asked Devin Liddell, principal brand strategist for Teague; Tyler Dikman, CEO of LoungeBuddy Alistair Gordon, author of Naked Airport; C.C. Chapman, author and marketing consultant; and Paul Sillers, aircraft interior design consultant to help us visualize it.
If you haven’t yet, check out the accompanying illustration on p. 92 of August’s Marketing Issue.
Q. What’s the biggest opportunity for branding that you think is being missed out on?
LIDDELL: Hands down the biggest missed opportunity within airports is meaningfully reflecting a city’s essence – and not in a cheesy, touristy way, but authentically representing a city’s social and industrial and geographical characteristics.
The problem with this is that airports have the opportunity to make themselves like nowhere else on earth, and yet so many of them are just the same-old, same-old.
So many of them even have the same furniture. Lots of missed opportunities here to tell a city or region’s story.
SILLERS: I think the biggest opportunity for airports is to deliver highly personalized and relevant information to passengers on their mobile devices as they transition through the various stages of the journey. During each phase, the passenger has a different checklist of needs and concerns, and the airports that are able to engage with passengers and support them through the journey will become the airports of choice in the future.
Q. What are some brands or branded experiences that you’d like to see more of in an airport?
CHAPMAN: I’d like to see more photo art galleries so that as I walk through the airport, I can see more and be entertained for a bit.
DIKMAN: In addition to being intriguing and educational, museum exhibits, like those in San Francisco International Airport (SFO), can help airports make use of available space while enhancing the terminal’s aesthetics.
SILLERS: What I’d like to see at airports is a branded experience that airlines can have ready on standby to keep the brand alive throughout the delayed part of the journey. This could mean the airline providing a personal shopper at the airport that has access to specially discounted products. It could mean having a branded crèche for families traveling with young children.
LIDDELL: I’d like to see a major shift in airports from wanting to sell me things to giving me things to do. And I travel a lot so even duty free loses its luster after awhile – I can’t drink scotch or use cologne fast enough to warrant buying more. But can I go bowling? Can I see a movie? Can I go golfing? There are a few airports doing this now, and they’re special. Basically, I want airports to stop treating passengers like captive consumers, and more like welcomed guests. And that’s a big distinction.
The best brands see passengers as guests – not consumers.
DIKMAN: Following in the trailblazing footsteps of SFO’s yoga room, brands can enrich and enliven the passenger’s often sedentary experience by providing them with more exercise-related branding experiences within the airport setting.
Q: What are common elements that exist in airports that you think we should do away with?
GORDON: Do away with the dread of the security lines as far as safety allows. A few companies are working on streamlined versions that are less intimidating, more human and user-friendly.
There’s a lot you can do beyond a labyrinth of stanchions.
CHAPMAN: Unorganized security lines. Horrible chain restaurants. Not enough restaurant options.
LIDDELL: The food experience in most airports is just sad. There’s no other word for it.
CHAPMAN: Also, crappy, uncomfortable chairs at the gates and a lack of plugs.
DIKMAN: In the modern airport, a lack of free Wi-Fi and inefficient seating design at the gate area seem nonsensical.
LIDDELL: In my opinion, airport furniture deserves an entirely new re-think based on how passengers actually want to use furniture. Integrated charging stations are an improvement, but most airport furniture layouts are totally broken.
Q. What’s the coolest thing you’ve seen a brand do in an airport?
LIDDELL: Marriott’s collaboration with TSA is very cool and very brave. I wouldn’t want my brand anywhere near TSA, but Marriott took on that challenge and has done what brands should really exist to do – solve problems, make life better and be generous.
DIKMAN: WestJet’s Christmas Miracle campaign last December was by far the coolest thing that a brand has done in an airport. While waiting to board flights to Calgary from Toronto and Hamilton International Airports, WestJet passengers confided their holiday wishes to a virtual Santa Claus. Upon arrival, they were treated to a Christmas miracle of epic proportions, as each guest received their very own personalized gift at their baggage claim carousel.
CHAPMAN: Johnnie Walker had a scotch tasting booth set up in a big travel trunk at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. Free Scotch is never a bad thing.
Q: Any airports that do branding particularly well as a whole?
LIDDELL: I’m a Denver native, so I’m a bit biased here, but I think Denver International Airport (DIA) has at least two notable characteristics that stand out: The distinctive peaked roof that evokes the Rocky Mountains is really spectacular.
I mean, sit down with a blank piece of paper and draw the exterior of your home airport.
I bet you can’t do it. But DIA is really distinctive visually – inside and out – and that’s strangely rare.
DIKMAN: One airport that comes to mind is Vancouver International Airport. Though international airports can often be sterile, hypermodern zones, Vancouver’s airport turns this concept upside down with totem poles, figurines and sculptures that represent the distinct cultural heritage of the Pacific Northwest’s aboriginal peoples.
GORDON: I travel quite a lot and the best airports are the fairly obvious choices: Schiphol in Amsterdam because it’s so well run and they’re always trying out new ideas to make the transit experience less dreadful, and San Francisco where I often find myself wanting to stay there a little longer when my flight is called.
SILLERS: One airport that I would rank highly as one that has nurtured its own brand identity successfully over the years is Schiphol. The airport has grown over the past decades but managed to always keep a consistent image in that classically understated Dutch manner. It’s an airport that’s functional, practical and an iconic gateway for visitors to Holland.
Have anything to add? Want to join the conversation? Email the editors at editor@apex.aero