Making Ourselves More Relevant In India

From embracing local cultural to operating its most high-end fleet in India, Lufthansa has been making heavy investments in the Indian marketplace to woo local travellers. In just four years, it has positioned itself among top foreign aviation players in the country. In an exclusive interview, ALEXANDER SCHLAUBITZ, Vice-President, Marketing, Lufthansa Group tells RUHAIL AMIN about the significance of the Indian market and the strategy that the group has adopted to leverage opportunities in this market.

- Ruhail Amin

What is your strategy for the Indian market?

Since we have been here for such a long time, we feel we have already established ourselves. Now, we are working on making ourselves all the more relevant. We are trying to immerse ourselves deeply into understanding the specific needs of the Indian customers and the cultural nuances that we can touch upon. This is not just as a marketing proposition but an overall proposition that we have embraced. This includes the product, the staff and making sure that everybody who comes from this market knows that ‘we are more Indian than you think’. This is something that has worked fantastically well in our favour and has been aided by the TV campaigns that we have been doing.

Many brands are using artificial intelligence and big data to target customers in today’s digitally driven world. How is Lufthansa leveraging these tools to target customers more effectively?

If I look back over the last four years, the excitement over what is possible in the near term in digital has been up and down a little bit. I don’t see anybody capturing the big promise of data yet. We have shifted a little bit from being more individualised to becoming more contextual. We have a good understanding of where people are at what time and what their contextual needs might be. We have been putting a lot of effort in making sure that we can address some of this. We are trying to be very focused to find out the right moment for the right interaction, so that over time, we can reduce the interactions and be more specific to the needs that customers have.

What are the biggest highlights from your journey in India so far?