This case study is about Brisbane Airport, a major international airport serving over 20 million passengers annually. It decided to engage at an emotional level to better understand foreign passenger groups. This case study focuses on emotionally benchmarking and understanding a foreign customer group in order to gather insights from their passenger experience. The results were then analysed, translated and implemented within the organisation to produce the world’s first departure card app, catering to international travellers’ needs.

THE CHANGING DYNAMICS OF TOURISM

There has been a resurgence in the tourism industry of Australia, giving rise to innovation efforts in this field. One such effort is specifically focusing on digital channels to enrich the travellers’ experiences, due to the changing expectations of travellers. To date the focus has been on smart technology advancements through personalisation, context awareness and real-time monitoring.

Over a decade ago (in 2006), Tourism Australia launched the campaign ‘So where the bloody hell are you?’ after spending over AU$180 million on its creation. It featured various Australian characters preparing for international visitors to their towns, from pouring them a beer in an outback pub to model Lara Bingle emerging from the clear-blue water of Fingal Island in a bikini, asking the rest of the world, ‘So where the bloody hell are you?’ The controversial campaign was banned by the United Kingdom’s Broadcasting Agency in 2007 due to the use of the word ‘bloody’. It was declared a failure and pulled by Tourism Australia a mere two years later.

There was backlash from around the world, as the message just got lost in translation. After all, what Japanese tourists want is completely different from the desires of an American tourist, right? The digital hedonic rhetoric of the campaign was to create a ‘uniquely Australian invitation’. However, such a personalised invitation was broadcast via TV, billboards, magazines and mass cinema press showings — anything but personalised! A more strategic use of digital channel selection and design could have made the world of difference — especially to Mr Morrison, the member of Australian Parliament who lost his job at Tourism Australia over it!

The fact remains that this campaign went through a lot of market testing and focus groups all over the world before it was released. Such focus groups were held globally by various marketing consultants and it showed that people from around the world were not offended by the use of the word ‘bloody’. So what went wrong? Figure M shows the break in the framework where the digital hedonic rhetoric and the digital stimulus do not align. This market is worth AU$17 billion to our nation, so you would think it’s worth getting right from the beginning.

Obviously hindsight is a wonderful thing when it comes to innovation. However, some of the best ideas do get lost in the stimulus part of translation. This is a prime example of a great idea being pushed onto mainstream platforms purely to reach a mass audience as quickly as possible.

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This case study shows an organisation that was not satisfied with the existing digital channels on the market — so they designed and created their own.

THE AVIATION INDUSTRY

The airport industry sits within aviation as a vital infrastructure service that makes air transportation possible. A traditional view is that airports are designed and exist to service airlines, considered to be the airport’s major client due to the prioritisation of aeronautical revenue to airline operation. Typically, the passenger is viewed as the end user or customer to whom the value of an airport’s operation is delivered. So through the traditional lens of an airport-to-airline customer segmentation, the passenger is viewed by an airport as a customer’s customer. However, this notion is changing, as passengers are increasingly being considered the prioritised customer segment due to the potential for non-aeronautical revenue coupled with the pressure of immediate public perception.

Based on this change within the industry, qualitative market research approaches that deeply understand foreign passenger groups are being explored by most Australian airports.

An airport can be a confusing and stressful environment for passengers, where negative emotions are exacerbated under constant time pressure. Airports can also be a very exciting place, associated with adventure, holidays away, or new business opportunities. A passenger’s experience within an airport is most commonly defined by activities that take place within the passenger terminal. So the passenger terminal is the primary touchpoint for interaction between passengers and the airport. Passenger experience is measured by service quality surveys, and it is the responsibility of airports and government bodies to regularly undertake these surveys. However, perceived quality can vary according to cultural and personal values, adding complexity to the surveys. The challenge for airports is to provide the best possible experience to all passengers in order to leave a lasting positive impression of a city and region and ensure that many more passengers return, using an airport by choice.

Airports frequently measure customer satisfaction in relation to functional aspects, such as passenger processes, airport facilities and customer services (as seen in figure N). However, the emotional aspects of the customer experience are rarely measured, if at all. While many companies have satisfaction goals and strategies, only a few rigorously measure their customers’ satisfaction, and even fewer act upon the results.

But what exactly do passengers value? And how can this value be translated into superior airport performances? New technologies have revolutionised the way companies interact and engage with customers, and are providing new challenges and opportunities to solve existing problems. Airports, like most companies, have been unsure how to best seize the opportunities that digital channels present. For most companies, the difficulty has not been in developing and launching their digital initiatives, but making them truly engaging and valuable to their customer base.

The shift into non-aeronautical revenue requires more attention to be focused on customer satisfaction, with research revealing emotional experiences correlate to passengers being calm and comfortable, which in turn leads to repeat business, higher spending rates and ultimately increased revenue. Numerous airports globally have commenced developing digital channels such as mobile apps, social media platforms and interactive wayfinding maps as a way to create a better experience for the passenger. However, little is known about how airports use digital channels and their impact on passenger experience, with most studies focusing on wait times, safety and management of airport services as indicators of passenger satisfaction and experience. However, only through understanding travellers’ needs and experiences can vendors learn how to best utilise technology.

DIGITAL TRENDS AT AIRPORTS

Within the airport sector the development of digital channels to enrich the passenger experience is slowly becoming sought after, due to passenger expectations and airport business goals both changing. This has placed an airport’s digital channel strategy at the forefront, becoming a major consideration in the future management of airports. The continual pursuit of non-aviation focused innovation has seen the passenger and their experience become a major area of importance. The growth in digital channel adoption has allowed airports to gain competitive advantage through innovative offerings to passengers.

However, there is a limited understanding of how airports are currently applying digital channels strategically, and the influence this has on their overall service ratings. According to the SITA Airport IT Trends Survey, in 2013 airports invested US$6 billion on information technology, prioritising investment in passenger processing technology, and in improvements to passenger services and information. The survey revealed that business travellers requested day-of-travel notifications pushed to their phones, and more than 70 per cent wanted to receive alerts when their flight was boarding. The survey also found that a majority of business travellers were dissatisfied with airport wi-fi (which makes it tough for any digital channel to be used), and would prefer mobile boarding capabilities.

Recently, international airports have deployed airport mobile apps, which provide passengers with information related to their flight, as well as notifications of changes in travel details. Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport has also implemented large digital touchscreens within airport terminals, allowing passengers to find restaurants and amenities within a five-minute walk. Dallas/Fort Worth aims to have these ‘digital wayfinders’ across the entire airport by 2018.

Self-service processing is also trending in airport technology. Numerous airports have adopted self-check-in kiosks and self-service scanners, allowing passengers to check into and board flights without the need for staff. Recently, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) developed the ‘Fast Travel’ initiative in response to customer demands for greater self-service options. Customers will soon have the ability to print boarding passes at home, print and attach a bag tag at a dedicated airport kiosk, drop off their bags at an unattended bag drop station, and board aircraft through an automated self-boarding gate. This technology has already been introduced at several European airports, and is quickly trending in the airport technology arena.

THE STUDY

To understand how industrialised and capital-intensive industries use digital channels, we explored the 100 top-ranked airports in the world to explore how and for what purpose they are using digital channels. The aim was simple — to investigate the integration of company strategy with appropriate digital channels. The findings suggest that the purpose and content of current airport digital technologies do influence the service quality provided to passengers. Some airports are currently not using digital channels to their full extent; we will explain more on this as the case study unfolds. The study outcomes provided Brisbane Airport, in particular, with information on current digital channel use and penetration, thus enabling it to benchmark its performance across digital channels. The subjects of the analysis were a mix of airports rated highest, mid and lowest for passenger satisfaction.

The airports studied were chosen based on the 2015 Skytrax Airport Awards for Service Quality, which look at how travellers from over 160 countries perceive airport service quality. This large and prestigious customer satisfaction survey looks at the passenger experience throughout the 550 airports worldwide, detailing check-in and security through to departure. The survey runs from June to February the following year, and is based on the opinions of over 13 million passengers. From this survey the top 100 airports were selected and ranked in order. This allowed us to examine the contrasts between higher-rated airports and their choices of digital channels. This section shows the content analysis and classifies the digital touchpoints adopted.

All digital channels across the 100 airports were analysed. The average number of digital channels used was 9.1, with fifth-ranked Hong Kong International Airport using the most (18) and number 34, Shanghai Hongqiao, using the least: one. The most frequently used digital touchpoints across all airports (shown in figure O) were websites (100 per cent), Facebook (85 per cent), digital media releases (82 per cent) and Twitter (79 per cent). Additionally, 66 per cent had web enquiry, 64 per cent had LinkedIn, 53 per cent had access to a direct email address and just under half (49 per cent) had a mobile app. Touchpoints that were not used by any airports included tutorials, Reddit, Vimeo, digital catalogues and digital loyalty programs.

No correlation was found between the age and size of airports in regard to their channel usage, however different locations saw differences in the use of digital channels. Airports in Asia had the lowest use rate of Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram. All three airports in South Africa used exactly the same digital channels: websites, mobile applications, web enquiry, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and blogs.

The digital touchpoints of each airport were analysed in regard to the four digital channel typologies (functional, social, community and corporate). The top 10 airports overall had similar rates of usage across the typologies, including an average of 54 per cent for functional, 40 per cent for social, 28 per cent for community and 28 per cent for corporate. This largely remained consistent for the remaining airports; the largest drop was for both community and corporate typologies amongst the airports ranked eleventh to thirtieth, with a rate of 13 per cent for both.

In comparing the highest-ranked airport and the lowest, there was a drop from the use of 13 touchpoints across the four typologies to the use of seven touchpoints across three typologies. Another finding was the relation of typologies to the location of the airports: the Middle East had the highest rate of functional and social typologies, South Africa had the highest use of the community typology, while Europe was the highest for the use of the corporate typology. South America had the lowest use of functional, Asia was the lowest in social, Oceania overall lowest for community.

THE AIRPORT’S CHALLENGE

The rise of Asia presents a significant opportunity for the global business community. However, tailoring businesses to deliver value to different consumer groups is a challenge, given the size of the population and cultural diversity across Asia. Airports regularly collect and monitor quantitative data, so they have the ability to understand these customer segments through the passenger movement records captured in day-to-day operations. Quantitative data broken down into nationality segments can inform strategic decisions made by airport management as to how the airport will grow while optimising existing operational capacity.

Airports that seek to understand Chinese consumers through the segmentation of Chinese markets have traditionally approached the task through the geographic location of residence and income levels. This is considered a generic approach that segments Chinese consumers based on urban or regional residence and north or south geographic location within the country. Such a broad approach makes it challenging to understand and anticipate rapid cultural developments that affect consumer behaviour. Personal wealth and increasing global engagement are producing Chinese consumers who express their status through high-end luxury brands. Predicting the travel behaviour of the unknown Chinese consumer is considered difficult, given the customer segment’s growing engagement in individualism. While the Chinese nationality segment is one target consumer group, there is a greater opportunity to develop research methods that can be applied to anticipate the future needs of other emerging customer segments.

Brisbane Airport was suffering a decline in retail revenue on the airside of the airport (past the security gates). It knew that a large segment of travellers from Asia were indeed purchasing many retail items from their visit to Australia, and wanted to know what new product mix to cater for in the retail airport environment. So it had commissioned a marketing consulting firm to conduct a large quantitative study on product preferences from the passengers in the hope that by stocking a new product mix it would stem the retail revenue decline.

AN EMOTIONAL DESIGN APPROACH

An emotional design approach aims to help businesses successfully innovate, differentiate and compete in a global marketplace. It is broadly defined as an approach that allows a company to consider and evaluate radically new propositions from multiple perspectives, typically spanning user needs, business requirements and technology demands (see figure 1.1, on page 4).

Emotional design methods (in this case study) are seen as an intimate shared understanding of the latent, current and future needs of the customer. As customers play an important role in the development of products and services, they must not just be seen as a source of information but also as a contributor with knowledge and skills. Active customers in the development process produce ideas that are significantly more innovative than those generated through traditional marketing techniques. A method to reveal such insights is not to question the how, what and where, but why certain consumer decisions are made.

The key is building a deeper emotional understanding of customer meaning and value, rather than being pulled by user requirements. Many of the methods used originate from a user-centred design approach and include user observations, scenarios of use, task analysis, personas and storyboarding. The aims of these methods are to uncover the needs and interests of the user, influencing the product’s usability and understanding. These tools allow companies to connect and create value with their customer, extending beyond just pleasing a customer’s superficial needs. Unlike marketing methods, the goal is not to evaluate a particular feature or experience of an existing product or service, but understand the customers’ ‘why’. The use of these methods allows a firm to place itself in the position of the customer, not by questioning their needs, but by trying to understand their values. Design techniques offer a more collaborative and creative engagement between the customer and a representative of an organisation, building a rapport that leads to deeper knowledge sharing. In this collaborative setting, converting a passive view of the customer into an active role can provide opportunities to imagine new market offerings with greater customer value.

Gathering customers’ emotional insights can fulfil the role of qualitatively measuring performance or customer experience quickly, with an emphasis on building understanding through empathy. It is important to have a deep and personal empathy with customers as people, rather than as demographic or marketing categories. Such methods are low-risk alternatives to market research that focus on improving the lives of customers, not just exploring a typical business-to-customer transaction.

DESIGNING A BESPOKE DIGITAL CHANNEL

The Brisbane Airport project began with a problem statement: Decline in retail performance on airside of airport. We were engaged to understand international segments, spending breakdowns, store popularity and brand popularity based on point of sale data. Chinese customers were identified as the strategic focus for the airport based on passenger growth forecasts. Market research also revealed the brands and stores popular with Chinese nationals, including Louis Vuitton, Chanel and Prada, so the data suggested that the airport should introduce a set of luxury retail stores. Over a three-month period we applied a design approach to understanding the motives of the Chinese passengers as they passed through the airport.

The emotional insights we gathered held implications for the general operation of the airport and became the basis for idea generation. The original problem was then reframed to: ‘eliminating the cultural barriers to security and customs checkpoints in the airport’. It turned out that the decline in retail performance was part of a much wider problem concerning the overall customer experience of Chinese nationals within the environment.

What would typically occur was that the Chinese national would purchase their products on the land side of the airport (prior to check-in and security), then begin to go through security and customs. They were often unaware as they queued up for security that they were carrying too much liquid. (The limit on international flights out of Brisbane is 500 millilitres.) This would cause conflict as security would inform them that they needed to throw out some of their recently purchased liquid items. This would occur with a large language barrier, holding up the queue. Security guards told us that this would occur daily. In addition, as the majority of these Chinese nationals did not speak English, many of them would struggle filling out their customs departure cards in English or get sent back by the customs officer for filling it out in Chinese. See figure P for the outgoing passenger card.

Again, they would hold up the queue of other travellers and cause congestion. This experience left many Chinese nationals emotionally frazzled, frustrated and red-faced at the end of this experience — not to mention the time lost (time that could have been spent in the airside retail environment of the airport).

Three streams of insights were built upon to develop a culturally sensitive airport experience for Chinese passengers. The solution recognised that retail engagement was part of a total airport experience and that the act of driving retail performance could also support the general operational performance of the airport.

Figure Q (overleaf) visualises the process of moving from problem to solution and highlights how the project grew from a simple problem statement to an integrated solution.

DESIGNING A DIGITAL SOLUTION

One solution to the newly uncovered problem was that of a digital departure card. This allowed for international passengers to complete the federally regulated card in their national language, then convert it into English and print it at a kiosk in the international terminal, all enabled by QR code technology.

The new digital departure card was built within the Brisbane Airport’s existing mobile app, allowing passengers to use their mobile device to enter and save personal information to upload to the departure card prior to arrival at the airport. The card is then printed at the terminal, signed by the passenger, and taken by customs officers as part of the normal departure process. Passengers can also save their profiles, and those of their family members, within the app to use those details for their next international departure from Brisbane.

Digital solution breakdown

1. Step 1 — Download the Brisbane Airport app.
2. Step 2 — Select the departure tab.
3. Step 3 — Enter your information.
4. Step 4 — Bring your mobile phone with you to the airport.
5. Step 5 — Go to the international terminal and visit the departure card kiosk near the security inspection area. Open your phone and locate the QR code saved in the ‘My Trip’ section of your Brisbane Airport app, scan the code at the kiosk and print a pre-populated departure card.
6. Step 6 — Sign the card and enter the security and customs gates.

See figure R (overleaf) for a visual breakdown of the process.

The Brisbane Airport digital strategy led to the creation of this unique digital channel through the Digital Affect Framework seen in figure S.

‘The result’, says Julieanne Alroe, Brisbane Airport Corporation CEO, ‘is an Australian (if not a world) first digital solution that will save time, streamline processing and help reduce anxiety associated with departure formalities, especially for non–English speaking travellers.’

This strategy was adopted by all areas of the organisation, where previously there was ambiguity in the form of many discrete and isolated digital channels belonging to separate departments.

The organisation has since received industry recognition for its initiative as a digital strategy leader. The mobile app was awarded ‘Best in Class’ at the Global Interactive Media Awards 2015, and it got one of the highest scores for any airport app ever (26/30) on the Moodie Reports APPraisal 2015. The airport received the ‘Best Airport in Australia/Pacific’ award at the Skytrax World Airports Awards, and it earned the 2015 Brisbane City Council Digital Strategy Innovation Award for its digital strategy leadership.

Their digital business strategy now underpins daily value creation. Since the project’s completion the airport has launched multiple products and services that align to its digital business strategy. This is a classic Fox approach, with the bravery and foresight to strike out and design its own digital channel — making them market leaders.

Key lessons from Brisbane Airport

• Don’t jump directly into pre-existing digital channels.
• Design the experience you want to create for the audience first.
• Don’t use a cookie-cutter approach — what has worked for another organisation may not work for you.
• Select the digital channel that will elicit the emotion you want to achieve — and if there is not one out there, design one that does what you want.
• Understand the why beyond the face value.
• Benchmark other digital strategies and channels in the same industries.
• Look to other industries to inspire your digital channel selection and experience.
• It is not only about the channel but about how people use it — and if they will use it at all!
• Assess the value the channel brings the user and also the organisation.