The new products
We focused on two types of products for three age groups, one line focuses on sensory stimulation, and the other is more about participation and the feeling of achievement. While doing so, we also considered the capabilities and the character of the different age groups.
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KLM already has a Bluey plush toy, but we introduced the new idea of making it smell nice and distinct. Its scent can also act calming to the children, which is very helpful during a flight.
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For children aged five to eleven, who can read and write and would actually remember visual cues too, it turns into scratch & sniff story books. One can be an adventure of Bluey with more floral scents, the other can be about a customer journey. For teenagers, we would like to implement an augmented reality app which would turn the airport almost into a playground with no physical improvements required. The app would teach them the all process to go on a plane, which they need to know it as in the next phase of their lives they will go through all of this, alone.
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The other product line is more about participation and the feeling of achievement. It starts with a colouring book for early ages, and a Lego plane for the child, which has been regarded as one of the best toys to entertain kids during a flight (and who doesn’t love Lego?). For teenagers, we thought a paper plane template book that shares the same brand identity of KLM’s game “Jets”. This book can also include a fun explanation of the science behind flights.
In short, these products are aimed at tapping into different sensory cues, and at generating meaningful memories with KLM’s youngest customers.
KLM
Customers for life
After researching about KLM’s current strategy and its decision to increase customer intimacy as their main competitive advantage, we researched how memories are created in the different age groups of children. This resulted in a framework intended for KLM to improve their current product offering for children.
Client /
KLM
Scope /
Strategic Design
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Team /
Merve Fettahglu
Milou Mertens
David de Witt
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Year /
2016
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Project Length /
2 months, 1 day per week
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Introduction
KLM’s ambition is to become Europe’s most customer-centric, innovative and efficient network carrier. This means that they invest in innovations that increase customer intimacy and improve operational performance. KLM connects people and trade across the globe, and is Dutch at heart: pragmatic, co-operative, hospitable and entrepreneurial.
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Our challenge was to come up with a new strategic proposition for KLM, by using publicly available information and an intake meeting with the director of operational excellence of KLM. The key learning from this meeting were that changes in this industry are very hard to achieve due to all the regulations that airlines are subject to. Therefore, our final solution had to be easily implementable.
This project was very broad, since we didn’t have a specific direction to start off. First, we started by digesting the massive amount of information that was available for us: from the annual reports to understand KLM better, to research papers on airline operations and also trends and future developments in the airline industry. From these, we saw a lack of developments on experiences for children and we realized that KLM’s current product offering for children was about the same as any other airline.
Therefore, we chose our target user to be children, and our motto to create lasting memories for KLM’s youngest customers. By engaging children and building a relationship with them, we can expect that, when it’s time for them to make a purchasing decision, they will come to KLM and not a competitor. And ultimately, happy kids mean happy parents, as well as a smooth journey for every other passenger in the plane.
Analysis
KLM, a long history to be proud of
In 1919, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines was founded. KLM is Dutch for Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij (literally: Royal Aviation Company). KLM is the oldest airline in the world. It also gives its name to the oldest international scheduled service operated by any airline under the same name. In 1920, made its first scheduled flights between Amsterdam and London - service that it continues to provide to the very present.
Desired identity
From a master thesis about KLM’s brand identity, this is what we found out. When managers were asked about the desired identity of KLM, three aspects came forward: innovation, high quality and reliability. The word “Dutch” is mentioned a lot. They say “People probably think that KLM is expensive, however it is a reliable company that offers high quality service.” When asked the brand position they say “KLM has a strong brand position in the Netherlands and Europe, however they suffer from low-cost competition.”
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They also mention the importance of social media and communication with customers and non-customers. They have a really strong social media presence. You can book a flight or get your boarding pass sent through Facebook’s messaging system. When you land, they send you a message with your baggage claim belt location. These are all efforts to increase customer intimacy. However the “traditional” channels might be improved and by “traditional”, they mean, e-mail.
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To summarize, the desired identity of KLM is innovative, reliable, sustainable, high quality, engaging, effective in communication, and attractive to employees. They want to achieve some sort of home feeling, as well as a pride in all stakeholders. Surprisingly, they do not mention they want to be the leader of all airlines! It’s not a priority or a favoured message. They want to have the best service and engagement with their audience on an individual level.
Trends
According to the International Air Transport Association, demand for air travel in 2015 rose 6.5% compared to 2014 in spite of the relatively weak global economy. However, KLM needs to respond to rapid changes in the airline industry. Whilst there is room for growth, there is fierce competition from low-cost carriers and airlines from the Gulf region. Competition from low-cost carriers such as EasyJet, Ryanair, Vueling and Norwegian Air is fierce and intensifying. We expect that their market share will grow as they focus more on business markets. Fuel prices and exchange rates remain volatile. The pace of digital change is increasing and customers demand lower prices and customised services. These changes, combined with their relatively high fixed costs, make it important that KLM adapts.
Positioning map and competitors
Purpose and strategy
Why this vision?
As they do not want to compete in luxury with the Gulf carriers, and in price with the low cost airlines, KLM strives to reach customer intimacy in order to build long term relationships and customer loyalty. KLM’s ultimate goal is that this genuine attention for their customers makes them feel recognised, at ease, comfortable and touched. The (frontline) staff is essential to their efforts to win customers’ hearts and therewith also win from the competition.
Our target group: children
From our research, we found out that every year, about a million children between the ages of two and twelve fly with KLM. About ten children per flight. It is important to KLM to offer these young passengers and their families a comfortable trip. However, we saw a lack of developments on experiences for children and we realized that KLM’s current product offering for children was about the same as any other airline.
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We chose our target group to be children, and our motto to create lasting memories for KLM’s youngest customers. By engaging children and building a relationship with them, we can expect that, when it’s time for them to make a purchasing decision, they will come to KLM and not a competitor. And ultimately, happy kids mean happy parents, as well as a smooth journey for every other passenger in the plane.
KLM current product offering
The following picture displays the current product offering of KLM for kids. From a small airplane, to colouring books and mobile games. However, these are completely unstructured in the way they are presented to children and don’t have a differentiating factor from other airlines’ product offering.
Bluey
Central to KLM current product line for kids is Bluey, a 3D blue plane, which appears in their products and in a series of animated movies in YouTube. Since Bluey has been quite successful, we want to leverage this brand for the new product offering.
Creating memories
People’s earliest and defining experiences have an important influence on current and future preferences in predictable ways across the consumer life cycle (Braun-LaTour, LaTour & Zinkhan, 2007).
Our goal is to build a relationship since early childhood through the creation of permanent memories by different sensory cues, which will evoke a nostalgic feel to KLM in later stages of life. We tried to answer the following questions: What are people’s earliest and defining experiences? What do they remember from childhood? How do memories work?
By doing a literature study on how memories work and with the interview of a psychologist, we derived three key aspects for our framework.
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Emotions are important. Experiences that elicit arousal are more likely to be remembered than experiences that do not evoke an emotional response (Kensinger, 2009).
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The active participation in the learning process by the child might result in making material more accessible in memory (Bruner, 1961).
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A distinctive event attracts attention, and the additional processing enhances memory. (Hunt - Worthen, 2006).
Cues
In addition we know that memories work with cues. Cues are the keywords, key smells and visuals that are associated with specific memories. Try to imagine your grandparent’s home, their kitchen, can you feel the smells from when they were cooking? You can travel back in time to that instance via scents. That would be called an odour cue.
Here’s a graph that shows distribution of odour-cued, word-cued and picture-cued autobiographical memories across a person’s lifespan. Scent related memories are predominant before age 10. On the other hand, there is a peak of visual and word related memories at age 10. This graph and research was a key point for us to decide which senses to stimulate in the different age groups.
Age groups
We divided the age groups into three. The baby, the child and the teenager. Babies tend to generate the most impactful memories through smell, whereas children have already developed their skill set and create memories by doing and encouragement from their peers. Teenagers tend to create them though visuals and words but focussing on subjects like identity and preferences as they are still figuring out their place in society.
Parents
While 60% of the parents struggle to keep children calm and silent during, before and after a flight, offering a more enjoyable journey for children will probably make KLM the preferred airline for parents. Additionally, by engaging children, it’s possible that they will also demand their parents to fly with the airline of the blue plane!
Results
So in short term we’ll have happy families and an enjoyable flight experience. In the long term, they will have a memorable brand image with children which will turn into future loyal customers.
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And to sum it up, we advise KLM to keep their existing product line for children and enhance these with additional products, that target different age groups. We think KLM should present their customer portfolio more systematically.
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KLM should take our study on memory creation into consideration and use the framework of our project for their services aiming children. And these services should be spread out to whole customer journey.
