Sample Case Study used n a culture building workshop for General Managers

1. Virgin America
CASE STUDY
MARRIOTT CONFIDENTIAL AND PROPRIETARY INFORMATION

2. CASE STUDY: VIRGIN AMERICA PAGE 1
Virgin America is a U.S. airline that started as
the brainchild of British entrepreneur Sir Richard
Branson. His goal was to reinvent U.S. domestic
travel by offering customers a flight experience
unlike any other. Branson envisioned a company
where shiny new planes, attractive fares, top-
notch service, and a host of fun, innovative
amenities were the norm rather than the
exception.
From this vision, Virgin America was launched in
2007. The fleet is equipped with inflight internet,
mood-lit cabins, custom-designed leather seats,
power outlets, and a video touch-screen at every
seatback offering guests on-demand menus and
countless entertainment options.
While federal regulations and oil shortages
delayed Virgin America’s initial launch, the com-
pany celebrated its 5th anniversary in 2012 and
reached a major milestone, having served over 10
million customers. Over the past five years, the
company has continued to receive accolades and
travel industry awards, proving their leadership in
developing a great customer experience and
innovative brand culture.
Introduction
Founded: 2004 (launched in 2007)
Industry: Transportation; Commercial Airline
Headquarters: Burlingame, CA
Base of Operation (Hub): San Francisco Airport (SFO)
Current Airport Destinations: 22 in North America
Mission: To reinvent domestic air travel and make flying
good again
Target Customer: The “creative” class: web-savvy
professionals who tweet, blog and own the latest iPhone
Revenue: $982.4 million as of Q3 2012
Brand Highlights:
• Stylish design and innovative technology for
upscale flying:
• Unique mood lighting that adapts to outside light
• 110v power outlets, USB and Ethernet jacks at every seat
• Deep leather seats in main cabin
• No black-out date frequent flyer program – “Elevate”
• The Red™ system is the most advanced inflight
entertainment system in the sky, with seat-to-seat
chat messaging, videogame library, on-demand
food and drink ordering and digital shopping
• Planes named with # for Twitter
• Airport Lounge: Virgin America Loft
“From our 2007 launch, our mission has been to harness new
technology and design to reinvent the flying experience and give
guests more comfort, choice, and control”
-David Cush, President and CEO
Since launching in August 2007, Virgin America has captured a host of travel
industry best-in-class awards, including:
• “Best Domestic Airline” in Condé Nast Traveler’s Reader’s Choice Awards for four consecutive years
• “Best Business/First Class” in Condé Nast Traveler’s Business Travel Poll for four consecutive years
• “Best Domestic Airline” in Travel + Leisure’s World’s Best Awards for five consecutive years
• #1 in Class in Zagat’s Global Airlines Survey in 2008, 2009 and 2010
MARRIOTT CONFIDENTIAL AND PROPRIETARY INFORMATION

3. CASE STUDY: VIRGIN AMERICA PAGE 2
Virgin America’s slogan is “A Breath of Fresh Air-
line”, a mantra which guides everything the airline
does.
Their focus is on creating a guest experience like
no other, and to continuously learn from their
guests what is working, what isn’t, and coming up
with new “stuff” to make them say, “Now, this is
how to fly!”
While the British-based Virgin Group does not
control Virgin America, the new airline is still con-
sidered a member of the Virgin Group family, with
similar fundamental business principles, philoso-
phies and advantages. They also have a similar
approach to gaining momentum and sustaining
success, and that includes networking and creating
partnerships with the community and other com-
panies. The company is eco-friendly with a strong
commitment to governance and accountability to
employees, stakeholders, and customers, whom
they refer to as guests. All companies associated
with the Virgin Group represent value for money,
quality, innovation, fun and a sense of competitive
challenge. An important core belief is that busi-
ness must be a “force for good” and use its influ-
ence and resources to help find solutions to some
of the world’s major issues.
It is clear that all aspects of the Virgin America
brand reflect these qualities. The culture is one
of fun, style, and resourcefulness, encouraging
out-of-the-box thinking and risk-taking to achieve
corporate goals.
Given its edgy new character, the company is up-
front about the fact that being on the Virgin Team
is not for everyone – even stating that on their
careers webpage. According to the site, the person
who can get the job done is “…someone creative,
compassionate, patient, visionary, spontaneous,
articulate, attentive, ambitious, fun, humble, brave,
The Foundation sympathetic, unflappable, dedicated, curious, pas-
sionate, energetic, inspiring, and trustworthy. It’s
the belief in one’s own potential that separates the
great from the unmemorable.”
New hires go through a rigorous two-day orien-
tation process, much of which is spent on the
streets of San Francisco in a frantic scavenger hunt
for city landmarks, Virgin America billboards and
other destinations. Often the top score goes to the
teams that find the city’s mayor. The exercise not
only introduces new staffers to Virgin’s creative
problem-solving ethos, but also teaches them the
kind of diplomacy required to handle VIPs they
might run into on the job. The teammates have to
research the mayor’s schedule, persuade his office
staff to help them, and when they do track him
down, e-mail a group photo to headquarters.
Virgin America presents a stand-out style that is
fresh and innovative – from their airplanes to their
airport staff and flight attendants. The cabins are
bathed in custom mood lighting; leather seats are
deep and comfortable. Video touch-screens, power
outlets and USB jacks are available at every seat.
The company partnered with Banana Republic in a
“project runway” competition to create sophisti-
cated and fashionable uniforms that reflect Virgin
America’s signature style.
With the goal of bringing back pre-flight excite-
ment and style, the company launched its first
airport Lounge, Virgin America Loft, in 2012. The
lounge replicates the sleek modern design and up-
scale experience presented onboard their planes.
Even though they are fairly new to the market,
Virgin America’s brand name is strong due to the
association with the founding company. Everyone
at Virgin America is committed to actions that
exemplify the Brand Pillars:
• Advocacy: Think of the guest first
when acting
MARRIOTT CONFIDENTIAL AND PROPRIETARY INFORMATION

4. CASE STUDY: VIRGIN AMERICA PAGE 3
• Innovation: Do it better than the other guys,
in whatever we are executing
• Vibe: Do it with personality and wit
Virgin is heavily focused on creating awareness
of its distinctive brand through social media. The
strategy is a low-cost, immediate way to spread
the word about promotions or other company
news and gives booked and potential guests al-
ternate ways to communicate with the airline. The
results achieved from this strategy are key compo-
nents of the Virgin America guest experience:
1. Know Your Audience. Virgin America’s
target guest is tech-savvy and adventurous.
The company relies heavily on social media and
technology, not only as the latest and great-
est communication strategy, but also to attract
new guests. Using the most current social me-
dia platforms like Loopt, Foursquare and Klout,
they drive awareness and sales. They often
offer prizes to customers who check in using
Facebook Places or Foursquare. Twitter is such
a strong component of their strategy they even
have planes named with the hashtag. Virgin
America was the first airline to offer a deal
through Groupon.
2. Know Your Voice. Virgin America’s voice is ir-
reverent, sassy and a bit cheeky. “In everything
we do, we try to maintain that enthusiasm
and tone,” says Jill Fletcher, who manages the
content calendar and makes sure the brand
is consistently active across all social media
platforms.V This voice is heard loud and clear
in the company’s entertaining YouTube videos.
They also strike winning chords creating part-
nerships with others, such as Boo, the popular
World’s Cutest Dog.
3. Allocate more resources where you find
success. As a relatively small company, the
advertising budget isn’t that big, so they rely
on new and interesting things to amplify word
of mouth buzz. On the day Virgin America
became the first airline to have fleet-wide Wi-
Fi, the airline did a Skype chat call with Oprah
Winfrey for her “Where in the Skype Are You?”
show. Twitter has proven to be a high value
vehicle for Virgin to facilitate two-way conver-
sations between the brand and its followers,
giving them the ability to offer deals and tips in
a quick and easy way. They’ve launched suc-
cessful Twitter scavenger hunts, and short-term
promotions like #FlyMoreGiveBack, from which
$5 per booking was donated to an education
charity.
4. Don’t be afraid to experiment. When
Virgin America started flying to two new desti-
nations in Mexico, it partnered with Loopt for
a 2-for-2 Taco and Tickets promotion, inviting
people to search for branded taco trucks in
San Francisco and Los Angeles. And, if guests
checked into flights using Loopt, they received
a digital promotional code for 2-for-1 tickets
to Mexico, and 2 for $1 tacos. Proceeds from
the promotion were donated to a canine rescue
center for Chihuahuas, and resulted in the fifth
highest sales day in 2010.
The Virgin team’s sense of fun paid off again
when they partnered with AwkwardFamilyPho-
tos.com to create a photo contest in conjunc-
tion with the airline’s new service to Orlando.
Online votes were cast and the winning family
got to fly the inaugural route with Branson
himself.
Another key element of Virgin America’s market-
ing strategy – and their success – is Elevate, their
no blackout date frequent flyer program. Elevate
is a flexible real-time program, making redemption
transparent and easy. By 2012, membership had
grown to 2.6 million.
MARRIOTT CONFIDENTIAL AND PROPRIETARY INFORMATION

5. CASE STUDY: VIRGIN AMERICA PAGE 4
Virgin America is 100% dedicated to creating a
unique customer experience.
When you step onto a Virgin America plane, you
are welcomed by mood-lit cabins, custom-designed
seating and the most advanced inflight entertain-
ment system in the skies.
The main cabin boasts deep, comfortable leather
seats, with a pitch designed to enhance travel com-
fort. First class guests enjoy white leather seats that
offer a steep, relaxing recline. All guests enjoy soft
mood lighting with 12 shades that adapt to outside
light.
The Red™ inflight entertainment system allows
guests control over just about every aspect of their
travel experience. Along with wireless internet that
allows guests to browse, post, tweet and email,
each seat is equipped with power outlets, USB
ports and Ethernet jacks. Groups and families ap-
preciate the seat-to-seat chat messaging capabili-
ties.
Red also allows guests to manage their own food,
snack and beverage orders with a tap of the seat-
back touchscreen. They can even order for a friend
or family member seated in another area of the
plane.
The entertainment system provides access to more
than 25 on-demand movies and 24 channels of
live TV. There is a kids’ entertainment section with
parental controls, and a videogame library. The
MP3 library contains 3,000 MP3s with the ability to
create personalized playlists. The system even offers
digital shopping.
Because Virgin America carefully manages each
guest touch point, by the time guests board their
planes, they are already primed for a great ex-
perience. Chances are they booked their flights
through an innovative media channel or responded
to a fun new promotion. These same technologies
enable the company to respond quickly to posts
and tweets, before, during or after a flight. That
strategy paid off in the wake of a challenging res-
ervation system upgrade in 2012, when Virgin staff
members were able to respond personally to every
tweet received from frustrated passengers.
Wired Magazine has called Virgin America planes
“multimillion-dollar iPods.” While some travelers
may not appreciate the techno-perks, the airline
has definitely hit the mark with guests who de-
mand constant connectivity and communication.
The environment on the planes and in the airport
lounges set them apart from all other airlines. But
it is the resourcefulness of the Virgin Team that cre-
ates anticipation and excitement among its follow-
ers who can’t resist Twitter promotions like #Flythe-
beard, where they were challenged to spot flight
attendants at a San Francisco Giant’s game who
were wearing beards. Now that’s truly unique!
The Customer Experience
Standing Out
References
• “Actual Control of U.S.Air Carriers” (Supplemental notice of pro-
posed rulemaking), 71 FR 26425, May 5, 2006.
• http://therealtimereport.com/2011/09/19/virgin-americas-social-
media-strategy-takes-off/
• http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505125_162-51396436/virgin-
americas-guide-to-not-to-screwing-up-customer-service/
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwaptht9WYg
• From bizjournals.com: October 11, 2009 article: Virgin America
targets ‘creative class’ with social media
• *http://www.virginamerica.com/inflight/whats-on-board.html
• **http://www.forbes.com/sites/carminegallo/2011/12/22/after-
snafu-virgin-america-rebuilds-trust-one-tweet-at-a-time/
MARRIOTT CONFIDENTIAL AND PROPRIETARY INFORMATION