Brand A-I: One too many

Mumbai: Nacil (National Aviation Co of India Ltd that operates Air India) is expected to register a loss of around Rs 5,000 crore in 2008-09, largely due to high operating expenses. Not that the airline was making money earlier, but many in the aviation industry attribute the current crisis to the government’s decision in 2007 to merge Indian Airlines (IA) with AI into one company. While the idea was good as it could have achieved economies of scale, the shoddy implementation has delivered a few hard knocks to brand Air India.
Look at the way the management has made a mess of the brand. The logo of the new airline is now a red-coloured flying swan with the 'Konark Chakra' in orange, placed inside it. But advertising and branding gurus are yet to figure out the reason for dumping the earlier logo – the Centaur, a stylish version of star constellation Sagittarius — which had become a part of the airline’s identity since 1948. Sagittarius, the archer, is the ninth sign of the Zodiac. The Greeks represented this constellation in the act of shooting an arrow and it symbolised movement and speed.
AI executives say the flying swan has been morphed from the Centaur, whereas the 'Konark Chakra' is reminiscent of IA’s logo. But experts say the decision is as illogical as the earlier initiative in 2005 to tweak the logo and the name of the airline. That time, the management removed the hyphen between Air and India and decided that the Centaur logo will be readjusted to point upwards to show the “progressive growth” the airline had made.
“But no one noticed the subtle changes even though a lot of money was wasted,” says a former Air India executive, adding the airline had in between changed the logo to Sun, which didn’t work, and had to bring back the Centaur.
Equally illogical was the change of the name 'Indian Airlines’ to 'Indian’ just two years before its merger with AI. The logic then was to revamp the domestic airline’s image in preparation for an initial public offering. The logo was also changed to the Konark chakra. The experiment was hugely expensive, too. All the 40 planes were repainted to sport the new logo, setting the airline back by around Rs 200 crore. But the re-naming remained good for only a few months as the name of the brand changed to Air India after the merger. Result: All the planes are being repainted again to make sure that the latest logo is visible prominently.
A former AI MD, who also handled IA as Joint Secretary in the aviation ministry, says the “AI owners are killing their own brand”. He says 12-15 years ago, when the merger proposal first came up, the management had decided to do a consumer survey to find out the value of the IA brand and whether it should be changed once the two airlines merge. The survey showed that IA was a distinct brand and should not be killed.
AI executives, however, justify the name change to Indian, saying it was necessary to differentiate the brand from other Indian airlines after the sector was opened up to private competition.
Many also object to the use of the wheel in the Konark temple as part of the new logo. “It beats me how the inspiration for the new logo for a service that means travelling across the skies be a bulky, monolithic structure that is set in stone and is static”, says a designer from the National Institute of Design, which had created the earlier logo.
27/07/09 Sapna Agarwal & Shuchi Bansal/Business Standard

To Read the News in full at Source, Click the Headline

Categories: NACIL Jul 2009