"We are seeking to build a brand, and not just an airline," says Tim Mapes, chief marketing officer of Delta's Song Airlines. "We want to build a lifestyle brand that transcends air travel."

"In the year since Delta launched Song, the 36-plane, discount airline has indeed shown a real flair for turning a commodity into an experience. Its flight attendants wear Kate Spade outfits, and offer passengers a smorgasbord of in-flight activities -- most recently an in-seat exercise program, designed by upscale gym mogul David Barton.

While some have criticized Song for trying to offer too much to its passengers, the fact is that every little thing Song does to please its passengers goes back to a very simple insight -- that women are the gatekeepers of air travel decisions and that airlines all but ignore them.

Says Tim: "We decided to let every other airline talk to the 48 percent of the U.S. population that is male and be the one airline that is positioning itself to better meet the needs of the other 52 percent of the population." In fact, Song's research found that women conduct about 90 percent of all online research into travel and leisure, and make about 75 percent of the decisions.

With that in mind, Tim and his team staged focus groups of -- yes, women -- taking square aim at what it was they wanted out of airlines. These women (whom Tim likes to call "The Wright Sisters") were asked to show up for focus groups as if they were going to board a plane.

"They brought their suitcases and their carry-on bags," says Tim. "Women who were traveling with kids had wipes, goldfish crackers, reading materials and coloring books." That was enough to convince Song that its customers shouldn't have to lug all that stuff to the airport. They decided to offer such items for sale, at Wal-Mart type prices, on-board its planes.

Song's mixture of low-prices and added-value services (roomy leather seats, at-seat digital TV, pay-per-view movies and internet access, to name a few) has drawn the inevitable comparisons to JetBlue. Tim, who began his career in advertising with Bozell and joined Delta in 1992 after shepherding its launch at BBDO, sees something other than a parallel, though.

"JetBlue is a very good airline," says Tim, "but they left the door wide open for an airline to be better. Where JetBlue introduced things like leather seats or live TV, they didn't do as much as perhaps could be done to build a brand around a greater emotional context. Song is working hard to do that with an optimistic, can-do, up-tempo, up-beat, attitude."

Song is also trying to spread that attitude in unconventional ways. Last November, it became the official sponsor of New York's ultra-trendy Meatpacking District, and engaged the neighborhood's bartenders to come up with a Song signature cocktail. It also opened a store -- for six weeks only on Prince Street in SoHo -- to give prospective passengers a sense of what it is like to fly Song. You could even buy Song's airplane food there. It was such a hit that Song opened another limited-run store, in Boston's Prudential Center.

So far, Song's record is perhaps more rock-and-roll than aria. In mid-April, Delta posted its third-consecutive quarterly loss. That followed Delta's earlier announcement that it was freezing Song's expansion plans.

That may be, but Tim Mapes, a true-believer since coming on board at Song in November 2002, sees nothing but blue sky. "Song's culture," he says, "is one based on innovation and creativity with a bias toward timely action -- we call it moving at the speed of Song -- and that is among our greatest sources of competitive advantage."



Does your focus on women mean that Song is a women's airline?

No, it's never been our intent to build or create a strictly female airline. The economics of the business simply just don't allow that. But what we found when we went into a test was that Song held equal appeal with men, seniors and children. What was interesting was that by building an airline designed to meet the needs of women, we met the needs of just about everyone else.

How did you come up with the name, Song?

The original name for this project actually was "Fresh Air," because we wanted to be a breath of fresh air in a category that had gone stale. We wanted to re-invigorate the fun and the excitement and romance that used to be present when people flew.

The thought was that while there are fashion, automotive and liquor brands that have a certain badge-value, there really wasn't an airline that reflected who people are when they fly. So, we founded Song on this notion of self-expression. In other words, much like shopping at Target, why couldn't you save money on air travel but feel good about yourself in the process?

We wanted a brand personality that allowed people -- whether our flight attendants or our customers -- to feel like a Song experience was an opportunity for them to express themselves, as opposed to other airline experiences that feel perhaps slightly oppressive.

Do you envision that Song brand personality as having potential for line extensions into other categories?

We do, in the context of some of the on-board products that we sell and serve. But that is certainly not a near-term aspiration for us. The airline business is complex enough to pursue line extensions in the near term.

The brand and the brand relationship with customers is what we focus on. Too often in this category, airlines focus on just running an on- time, safe, reliable airline. That's really price of admission in the business now. Not enough airline executives really understand the importance of marketing and the power of successful branding.

Why are you opening Song stores and how important are they to your marketing strategy?

What the stores are allowing us to do -- both our store in SoHo in New York at the end of last year and at the Prudential Center in Boston at the beginning of this year -- is essentially bring the Song experience to the people. You can't invite people out to experience what Song is like at an airport, because they'd have to go through security and so forth.

The stores have been very effective. We took a lot of reservations out of the store in SoHo and received great media attention. The same thing is happening in Boston. The stores lead to sales, to enrollments in our Sky Miles program and drive awareness. In addition, at the end of every day we can close the store and have a private event. One weekend we had a travel agency appreciation event, and our president, John Selvaggio, came up and played in a band and hosted travel agents.

JetBlue has been dismissive of the stores. Why do you think that is?

It's very interesting to hear competitors come out so vocally against us. The thing is, every time they say something negative about us we kind of enjoy it. We just want to do our thing and better serve our customers.

In any case, you can deduce from the fact that had our SoHo store not been successful we would not have replicated it in Boston. It's now getting to the point where it's something that we are talking about moving into some of the other cities where we fly because it is such a great thing. I hope JetBlue continues to think it's a bad idea.

Why don't you downplay your relationship to Delta?

Because we're honored and proud of the association. Our flights are flown with Delta pilots and 100 percent of our flight attendants were culled from the ranks of Delta's best-of-the-best. All of our planes are maintained by Delta. There is enormous equity and value in those things. We also benefit from Delta's technology and massive investment in technology that speeds people through the airports or allows them to check in on their home computer.

So, our strategy is to take the best of what Delta has to offer from customer and operational standpoints, and leverage that. At the same time we keep operating costs down -- which is what allows us to do all of these things profitably.

Is there anything special about your online strategy?

Web distribution is among the single-most important things we focus on because it is simply the lowest-cost channel of distributing our product. What's interesting and striking about FlySong.com is that it takes a host of elements that are all designed to provide our customers with confidence.

Certainly, they are getting the lowest possible fare. When you go to FlySong.com, you can type in an itinerary and up will pop a price. We promote that the lowest fares are generally $79 and the highest fares are $299. So, when you see your fare come back and at, say, $179, the site actually prompts you into ways to find an even lower fare. That might seem counterintuitive, however the strategic reasoning is that providing our customers with open, honest fare information builds certainty and confidence into the relationship.

There is also a host of other functions, such as the ability to pre-order a sandwich, check-in online or print your boarding pass. Again, that's a demonstration of the leveraging of Delta's assets and investment in technology that some other airlines simply cannot afford. For that reason, it's a fairly proprietary functionality that is always going to help FlySong.com, and help people find value in using it.

What has surprised you most about the first year?

As optimistic and as excited and as enthusiastic as we all were, we were surprised by the speed with which customers, the press, and Wall Street grabbed onto Song and saw it for what it was -- as something different and a legitimately-marketed, different airline experience.

It's a marathon -- not a sprint -- and a year does not a success make. We're still very much at it because being that breath of fresh air that we seek to be means we're never done. We've really got to be refreshing the experience constantly. That's where airline brands that have come and gone -- or that were hot yesterday but are cold today -- fell down.

So, how do you maintain that enthusiasm to keep it fresh and new?

We will remain committed to the very types of research that helped us form Song in the first place. Ethnographic research that enables us to quantifiably develop a deeper understanding of the unmet needs of both Song and other airline customers will form the base of that. Use of customer suggestions and comments we receive via Song's Customer Care unit will round that out.

But most importantly, input from and feedback by Song's front-line customer contact staff -- for example, flight attendants, airport customer service agents -- provides us with the best ideas for new product and service innovations and ensures front-line buy-in from the very start.

In my experience, it is not so much the ability to develop ideas as it is the commitment to act on ideas developed that represents the key to success.