From catwalk to cabin, the iconic Virgin red radiates style and glamour: what other airline could comfortably spoof the iconic opening sequences of that combination of sex and sophistication, James Bond? In true Virgin style, Branson has not stopped with the uniform: his hostesses are now the walking embodiment of the Virgin Atlantic brand, lips and all.

In collaboration with Bare Minerals, Virgin Atlantic recently announced the icing on the cake with its launch of ‘Upper Class Red’, a red lipstick set to inject the glamour back into flying. The new line was handed out free of charge to female passengers flying Upper Class on the first flights to New York to feature Virgin Atlantic’s new Upper Class Dream Suite, and will be available for us ordinary mortals to buy from Bare Minerals shortly.

As you might expect from the airline that brought us in-flight bars and masseurs, the lipstick is more than a pretty face; it contains ‘micronized fresh water pearl powder to hydrate the lips and alleviate the effects of cabin air pressure’. Whether this extension will actually take off (excuse the pun) outside the cabin, I am somewhat dubious – but as a means of publicising the launch of the Upper Class Dream Suite, it’s an inspired move. There is no doubt in my mind that Virgin has once again well and truly painted the sky red.

Those who are fortunate enough to fly in Virgin Atlantic’s Upper Class service may well be familiar with Wilbur and Orville, the highly collectible salt and pepper pots which many passengers have taken as souvenirs of their flights over their 12 year stint in the cabin.

They are now being withdrawn from service and replaced. However if Virgin’s accountants had their way they would not have lasted as long as this; they wanted to remove them years ago due to the cost of replacing the stolen ones. But Virgin being Virgin, they decided to keep the pots because they believed they were an integral part of the Virgin promise to put the fun back into flying. Instead they took advantage of the opportunity to communicate and emblazoned “Pinched from Virgin Atlantic” as a cheeky note to acknowledge their coveted status by passengers.

It struck me as a fun and innovative way to bring their brand to life at a part of the customer experience normally ignored by airlines.

What other nice touches have you seen brands making to add their own flavour to frequently overlooked elements of customer experience?

India, the world’s biggest democracy, is rapidly becoming the key market to crack for international brands. In a new series of blog posts Anjul Sharma – fluent in Indian culture and languages Hindi, Punjabi & Urdu - looks at the approach to branding in one of the planet’s fastest growing markets.

In my first post I talked about how Taj Hotels and Palaces were wowing travellers with their amazing portfolio of properties, luxury personified and customer service par excellence. This week, lets carry on exploring the customer experience offered by Indian brands – lets start talking about Kingfisher (the airline, not the beer!)

Kingfisher Airlines Limited are India’s largest airline - both in size and market share - operating over 400 flights a day with its regional Indian and international services. Even more impressive, it is one of only six airlines in the world to have a five-star rating from Skytrax. That’s quite something.

Kingfisher was never planning to be a small bird in a big sky – it wanted to be a big bird in a big sky. Chairman Dr. Vijay Mallya made his intentions clear at launch when he said “we are committed to achieving our ambition of making Kingfisher Airlines India’s largest private airline both in capacity and market share by 2010.” Ambitious indeed! But here’s the thing. This was not an empty promise – it’s been a reality which, in my experience, has beautifully and elegantly over-delivered on its promise to the delight of customers.

Let me tell you about my travels on Kingfisher. I’ve flown with them internally within India both in Economy and Business Class. In economy, the stewardesses addressed me by my own name with smiles as big as the Taj Mahal – ‘Good morning Miss Sharma, what can I offer you for your lunch? Would you care to have vegetarian or non-vegetarian?’ ‘Very good Miss Sharma, I’ll get that for you’.  By the way, the food was brilliant too. So used to being treated like a battery hen in Economy even in Emirates and Virgin Atlantic, no wonder I was speechless when she knew my name. I later discovered that they pay special attention to females travelling alone and mums with kids. So even in Economy I had the nice Kingfisher male attendant politely ask me for my luggage tag so that he could bring me my suitcase off the carousel.

In Business Class it’s an even better experience. The male Kingfisher attendants met me in the car park by the taxi drop off point. He took my bags and escorted me to a seating area in the check-in lounge. He then took my passport and bags and checked me in, before leading me to the Executive Lounge. The same attendant collected me at the time of boarding to take me through immigration, through the gate, up the stairs to the plane and sat me in my seat. Being used to carrying my own bags everywhere I was somewhat taken aback by this level of service. I told him in Hindi “I feel embarrassed that you are walking in front of me with my bags and I’m walking behind like a Memsahib”. “Madam, you are our guest and it’s our job to look after you” he replied.

Kingfisher demonstrates the power of heartfelt passion for customer service which other carriers and non-aviation based service providers could learn much from. This potent message is captured succinctly on their website…

Welcome to a world without passengers: Welcome aboard Kingfisher Airlines, where you are made to feel like an honoured guest and not just a passenger. At Kingfisher, a flight is not a journey between two airports but an experience of a lifetime.

Every time I’ve flown with Kingfisher, they’ve done just that: treated me not like a passenger, but like a truly honoured guest.

It sounds like the worst kind of complacent pap to say that every bad experience for a customer is an opportunity for a brand, but a quote in the Chicago Tribune this week from American Airlines managing director of customer experience Mark Mitchell suggests that’s exactly the case.

Cited in an article examining the role of the ‘professional apologizers’ – aka specialist customer service staff – employed by the airlines, Mark said:

“We know how our customers score us on a routine flight, and we also know how they score us when we handle a delay situation very poorly or very well. When we handle a delay situation well, they score us about 14 to 16 points higher than they do for just a regular old on-time flight.”

Does your brand leave your customers feeling like Mr Grumpy or Mr Happy?

Staff at Southwest Airlines, meanwhile, aim to contact every passenger affected by delays or other problems within 24 hours of their experience to apologise, offer a brief explanation and a small gift - usually a discount voucher for a future flight. The result is that Southwest had the lowest consumer complaint rate of the 19 airlines ranked by the US Department of Transportation in 2009.

There are at least two differing schools of thought as to why the successful recovery of a poor experience can do wonders for brand perception. The first (and somewhat depressing) view is that consumers have come to expect certain industries to perform badly and provide poor service - a perception for which Ryanair is surely the poster child. A brand that makes an effort to repair some of the damage done, therefore, accrues bonus points above and beyond the norm.

The alternative, more encouraging possibility is that consumers understand that no brand can be perfect one hundred percent of the time, and respect those brands which acknowledge that fact and act appropriately.

Interestingly, the latter view agrees with the findings of some qualitative research we conducted recently among brand loyalists of another service provider. When talking to those most loyal to the brand, we found that they were capable of transforming even a strongly negative experience into a reason to support and believe in that brand. Thus a wrongly charged fee subsequently refunded became an  example of excellent customer relations, while stories of oustanding service from competitor brands were ignored or dismissed as ‘salesman’s tactics’.

It’s often difficult for marketers to persuade senior management that the best thing a brand can do when it gets something wrong is metaphorically to throw up its hands and admit it. No organisation likes to open up a vulnerable area to attack. The alternative, however, may be to log in one  morning to find your brand immersed in a stream of vitriol from unhappy customers – particularly in this age of social media and blogging.

So the next time you find yourself in a situation when the ordure has just headed skywards, take a deep breath, tell the truth and say you’re sorry. As your mother always told you, it’s the right thing to do…

You can always rely on Michael O’Leary to play the pantomime villain.

True to form as Britain’s skies opened for business, Ryanair’s Chief Executive told passengers his airline would not meet hotel and subsistence expenses incurred while stuck abroad. Ryanair would reimburse travellers the original price of their air fare and no more, he said.

Ryanair’s deal is pretty clear – and the brand has been very appealing. A cheap, no frills service that gets you to your destination and if you want a bit more in the way of service, you will have to pay a bit more.

But is Michael’s declared refusal to abide by European legislation on looking after stranded passengers a step too far? Giving a no-frills service: fine. But, if you run an airline in Europe, you probably have to put up with European aviation laws.

Ryanair is already reaping some pretty venomous criticism from the stalls.

‘You can’t say, as O’Leary has, “the laws weren’t designed for these circumstances”.  Everyone understands that you’re just saying “the law is there to ensure that money goes into Michael O’Leary’s pockets, not out of them” – Telegraph April 22nd 2010.

“This is shocking behaviour and rubs salt into the wounds of those who have been stranded overseas” - Norman Baker, Liberal Democrat transport spokesman.

When does cheap become mean? Michael may be one brand owner who should get closer to his customers but might find the experience a bit uncomfortable in the near future.