The Senior Vice President of Media Contacts, a consulting firm, was tasked with the challenge of improving the marketing strategies of Air France through internet or search engine marketing (SEM). With the boom of SEM as an advertising tool, most companies are putting in funds in utilizing such medium. The Senior VP, Rob Griffin, wants to deliver the best of what Air France requires for sales development. This case study looks in-depth at the airline industry and considers all the factors in coming up with the right internet marketing strategy for Air France.
​Mark Jeffery, Lisa Egli, Andy Gieraltowski, Jessica Lambert, Jason Miller, Liz Neely, Rakesh Sharma
Harvard Business Review (KEL319-PDF-ENG)
March 06, 2009
Case questions answered:
- Identify the key decisions that need to be made in the short run and in the long run.
- Do a brief SWOT analysis of Air France as it applied to their online campaign (i.e., do not focus on the airline business and competition per se).
- Which publishers produce the best marketing campaign results?
- Which publishers should receive more marketing dollars? Which should receive less? Should any be eliminated?
- Which publishers would benefit from changing tactics i.e., changing keyword, match type, and bid strategy?
- Which publishers would benefit from improved copy i.e., improving wording in the search ad or the content on the landing page?
- Kayak Click data is not available through DoubleClick. How does Kayak compare to the other search engines? Would you recommend more or less funding for Kayak SEM campaign?
- Write your summary recommendations on how Air France can improve their results in the future?
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Case answers for Air France Internet Marketing: Optimizing Google, Yahoo!, MSN, and Kayak Sponsored Search
This case solution includes an Excel file with calculations.
Introduction – Air France and its plan on Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Rob Griffin, Senior Vice President of Media Contacts, a consulting firm, was tasked with the challenge of improving the marketing strategies of Air France through internet or search engine marketing (SEM). With the boom of SEM as an advertising tool, most companies are putting in funds in utilizing such medium. Griffin wants to deliver the best of what Air France requires for sales development. This case study looks in-depth at the airline industry and considers all the factors in coming up with the right internet marketing strategy for Air France.
1. Identify the key decisions that need to be made in the short run and in the long run.
2. Do a brief SWOT analysis of Air France as it applied to their online campaign (i.e., do not focus on the airline business and competition per se).
3. Which publishers produce the best marketing campaign results?
To identify the publisher that produces the best marketing campaign results, we can use the following Key Performance Indicators (KPIs):
- Click-through-rate% (CTR). The number of clicks generated per 100 impressions.
- Transaction Conversion Rate% (TCR). Number of transactions per 100 clicks.
- Probability of Action(PoA): CTR*TCR
- Return on Advertising Expenditure (RoA): Net revenue divided by the advertising costs.
The following table summarizes the analysis:
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