Case Study: Direct Marketing

Question 1

The term “direct marketing” excludes the "middle man" from promotion, as a company's message is provided directly to a potential customer. (Investopedia, 2010) Direct marketing is an advertising campaign that aims to gain an action (such as an order, a visit to a store or Web site, or a request for further information) from a group of consumers in response specific communication from a marketer. The communication may take many forms such as mail, telemarketing, direct e-mail marketing, and point-of-sale (POS) interactions. (searchcrm.techtarget.com, 2014).

The fact that British Airways uses their resources such as the internet (through cookies, and customers filling in forms) suggests the large amount of data available to them. This data includes a large amount of information about many individuals and could hold a huge competitive advantage over other airline companies as they can refine their service offering for each individual’s preferences. The customer enters in personal information and it is at the disposal of British Airways to gain insight into the customers’ preferences.

On the British Airways website, it states the following under ‘legal’:

“Tracking

Cookies are used to gather statistics on how customers use the site. For example, to:

• Gather feedback on satisfaction through our website survey.

• Gain insight into how customers use the website so that we can make improvements to its usability..

Marketing

Cookies are used to enable us to present appropriate messages to our customers. For example, to:

• allow ba.com to serve up different versions of a page for marketing purposes.

• control invitations on ba.com for instant credit card offers.

• allow third parties to display appropriate advertising and to tr...

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...being exploited.

The organisation should also display ethical behaviour towards its stakeholders which is important for building long-term relationships with its customers.

Companies must adhere to the Data Protection Act (1998) which protects consumers’ data privacy. According to the EU Data Protection Directive (1995), there are eight principles of which the data collection should follow:

• Fairly and lawfully processed

• Processed for limited purposes

• Adequate, relevant and not excessive

• Accurate

• Not kept for longer than necessary

• Processed in accordance with customer’s rights

• Secure

• Not transferred to countries without secure data protection

Adhering to these principles will help the customer trust British Airways with its data and make the customer feel more comfortable about the privacy of information they provide on the airlines website.