Song Airlines

Song Airlines was launched in 2003 as a subsidiary of Delta Airlines, and was meant to serve as a low-cost airline, that would target women and offer organic food and more entertainment options and would compete with JetBlue Airways. This endeavour was a big risk for Delta as Song operations began at the worst possible time for the airline industry, which was post 9/11. Regardless of when its operations began, Song was still determined to showcase its marketing ideas and branding concepts

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Song’s long-term branding strategy was not the prototypical strategy that any other airline would’ve had as it included various details which did not directly apply to the airline itself. First, they identified their target market as stylish, hip professional women, who were essentially the “gatekeepers of travel decisions.” They felt that what made their airline so attractive to women would essentially bring other travellers. Their main goal was to meet not only their consumers’ travel needs but their social needs as well.

Before launching Song Airlines, the marketing team extensively researched and studied thousands of people. They looked into what aspects made flights more enjoyable, what colors exhibited which emotions, and what styles made the flier most comfortable. The results weren't surprising. People wanted fun, passionate, and helpful flight attendants, and comfortable seats with a lot of room and entertainment. Song delivered. Their staff sang the welcome over the loud speaker, interpretive danced out the safety instructions, and ensured that all needs were met, promptly.

They positioned their business as a luxury travel experience. Flight attendants wore Kate Spade-designed uniforms and flyers enjoyed at-seat digital TVs and internet access, as well as healthy organic meals which were sold at a value price. Kate’s husband, Andy Spade, was also hired by Song and was put in charge of the commercials which, just like the overall marketing and branding scheme of Song, showcased the airline as a culture rather than as just another regular airline. He was given almost a third of the twelve million dollar overall budget to work with. This is what he came up with, Song Airlines’ first commercial.

What Song basically intended to do with their whole marketing strategy was to invent a new culture around flying in order to get the attention they so desperately wanted. This was portrayed in most of their slogans, such as “we are not an airline, we are a culture” and “founded by optimists, built by believers.” These marketing ideas were based on the idea of a spirit and an emotion that could not be copied and they incorporated this philosophy into not only their employees but their customers as well by attempting to brand them to “be song.” Song’s marketing plan was intended to create a “lifestyle brand” through several different outlets, such as an exercise program and “Song Stores.”

When Delta Airlines decided to launch Song, they hired a veteran of the ad world, Andy Spade, who with his wife Kate is co-creator of the Kate Spade Company, a multi-million dollar line of fashion accessories. In this interview, Spade talks about how they went about developing a brand identity for Song, how it relates to the Kate Spade brand, and some of the things that he hopes the Song branding campaign will deliver: "We're going to create a campaign for Song that's spirited, that delivers on the benefits that we think are most important. Do it in a way that is emotional. Do it in a way that is optimistic because we believe that is part of the Song ethos." FRONTLINE's interview with Andy Spade was conducted on Jan. 8, 2004. [Update: In October 2005, Delta Airlines, which has filed for bankruptcy protection, announced it would disband Song in the spring of 2006 and merge its aircraft and some of Song's innovative features into Delta.]

Tell me how you got involved with Song.

A mutual friend of ours who we'd done business with approached me and my wife, Kate, and said there was a new airline that's being launched through Delta, a small airline that has a neat idea -- what we felt was a neat idea -- to really bring service and style and a new level of opportunity to the passengers. We were interested, so we thought that we'd sit down and talk to them about that.

What was the main idea?

Well, the biggest idea was that they wanted to offer choice to the customer. They felt that other airlines weren't offering people style, which we agreed with. We didn't think that there was any airline, with the exception of British Airways, and Virgin to another degree, [both] outside of the States, bringing any kind of style to the idea of flying.

They also talked about having a chef who would prepare all the foods -- organic and fresh food. They were interested in creating unique uniforms for all the flight staff, which we love, and that's why we started our first conversation.

Kate loved the idea of doing that as they did back in the '60s. We love bringing that back to flight, because flight is and should be a very glamorous experience. It just lost its way along the line. And when Kate and I thought about it, we thought, God, why can't you do something great in the air? You can do it on the ground: Look at what the W Hotel has done. You look at what Andre Balazs has done with all his hotels and the Mercer. We thought, well, why can't they offer those things in the air?

Spade was in charge of producing Song's TV campaign in which he wanted to downplay the airline's new features in favor of something much more intangible - its soul. [Read Spade's comments about the TV ads which appear near the end of his interview on this page.]

So we thought it was a neat initial conversation, and we liked the people, which was helpful. And they seemed very, very bright and very, very enthusiastic. So from there we went to the next conversation.

And the next conversation was?

"Would you like to design uniforms for Song?" And our response was: "Well, that depends. What else are you doing, and who else are you working with?" They were in the initial stages of development. "What will the airplane look like? What will the interior look like? What will our uniforms be surrounded by? Who are you recruiting? What will be the attitude of the flight attendants? What will the gate look like? What will the music be like? What will you offer beyond

That's when they started talking to us about these ideas, some of which they had already confirmed -- one of which was the chef and having fresh and organic food; also, their relationships with companies like Stoli at the time. They were talking to Disney

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