Airline’s Policy On Marketing

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32320, 11 June 1970, Page 5

Airline’s Policy On Marketing

Airlines must fulfil the commitments they made in their advertising and publicity, said the Qantas marketing manager (Mr H. Birch) in Christchurch yesterday.

In Christchurch to aaaress the Canterbury division of the New Zealand Institute of Management on the marketing philosophy of the company, Captain Birch said that no other product or service a consumer purchased demanded as much specialised and personalised attention as did an airline, except perhaps medical care. He said that Qantas and Air New Zealand were anxious not only to project but to earn a world-wide reputation for friendly, reliable and efficient service. Captain Birch likened marketing specialists to the artist who, on completion of a painting, quickly tired of it and sought new inspiration and better expression. The greatest effect on marketing practice was exerted by the environment in which we and the rest of the world lived. Political, economic, cultural and physical aspects all played their part, sometimes singly and sometimes collectively.

The efforts of Qantas in the beginning might not have had a great effect on the Australian public or have done much to change the environment but, said Captain Birch, “I don’t think you can say that today—so years after.” “It is our thinking today projected into the future which is going to have an enormous effect on those who come after us and who will have to put into action the marketing concepts which we today are formulating for them,” he said.