It seems almost crazy that an airline company such as Emirates has a fleet of just over 200 aircraft. This notion is in relation to the amount of sponsorships they hold in the sporting world and how they go about promoting them. Name a sport and Emirates probably has a sponsorship hand in it.
With their name involved with sports everywhere, they are truly reaching a worldwide audience.
Emirates reaches the world, but promotes to few
Emirates can certainly be viewed as a worldwide company. Based out of Dubai, they currently fly to over 130 destinations in more than 60 countries around the world. In the financial year 2010/2011, Emirates carried 31.4 million passengers and 1.8 million tons of cargo.
Perhaps these passengers know of the airline because of their sport-based sponsorships. Consider the following: Emirates has sponsorships in soccer, tennis, golf, rugby, motor sports, horse racing, cricket, sailing and australian rules football. And of course, each sport comes along with sponsorships in numerous leagues, thus furthering the company’s wide reach.
Soccer appears to be one of Emirates largest and best sponsorships. Arsenal and Emirates Stadium come to mind, but soccer itself is a huge sport that finds common ground across the globe. In other sports, such as F1, the airline is the sport’s official sponsor. Not only that, but they created an F1 dedicated channel exclusive to their fleet of planes.
Where Emirates Is Struggling
Even with all of this sponsorship, they somehow fail in the social media promotional phase. Emirates’ only official social media accounts, at least within the US, are YouTube, Facebook, and Google+. All of these sites seem to be underutilized from a promotional standpoint. With so many great sports to showcase, how can they forget social media marketing like that? For instance, the company has 2.1 million Facebook fans.
The brand does focus on their partnership with Arsenal, but has eight times less followers than the team.
But maybe the company’s social effort is being overlooked. With such a worldwide reach via their sports partnerships and being based in Dubai, are they possibly utilizing social networks that aren’t popular in the US? It could be. But with such a grand fleet and “explosive growth”, imagine the growth the company may see if it decides to utilize popular social media channels. Wouldn’t it be smart business to show off the following:
- An award-winning international cargo division
- A full-fledged destination management and leisure division
- An airline IT developer
Do you think Emirates is missing out by underutilizing social media? Here is an info graphic of Emirates’ impressive sponsorships.
Photo credit – thetimes.co.uk