Manchester United knew what it was doing when it sent AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandes a club shirt with the company’s logo emblazoned across the front. It didn’t take long for Fernandes to take a picture of himself in the shirt and post it to his blog. Cue plenty of column inches for a football club desperately seeking a shirt sponsor.
Even though Fernandes claims to support London football club West Ham, the thought of deepening his association with such a global brand - AirAsia is already an official partner of the club as well as the sponsor of English football referees - clearly appeals. For the self-styled Richard Branson of Asia, it all feeds the Fernandes myth of the local boy making it on the global stage.
Like Branson, the AirAsia chief excels at making himself part of his brand. He has become renowned as the accountant-turned-businessman who paid a pittance for an airline and turned it into Southeast Asia’s leading budget carrier. He is the champion of value, and an anti-establishment hero - he rarely misses an opportunity to put the boot into Singapore Airlines.
When you meet Fernandes in person, however, some of the clichés fall away. Even though he is commonly painted as a flamboyant go-getter with a penchant for gimmicky marketing, in reality he seems more like a restless, practical but rather stubborn sort of businessman, constantly hatching his next business plan. In fact, he openly accepts that his image is more media-created than real. “I am not the way I am portrayed. I am very simple,” he says. “I drive myself. I walk around in shorts most of the time, and am very down to earth. I love the simple things of life.”
In the current climate, AirAsia may need this down-to-earth side of Fernandes’ personality. Its 2008 results showed continued growth in revenue, but the company fell to its first net loss since it went public in 2004. It has also been involved in a spat with the Malaysian Government over plans to build a new airport in Kuala Lumpur. Add in a brewing price war with other budget carriers, and it makes for a tough few months for the brand.
As one might expect, Fernandes has come out fighting. “We cannot put our heads in the sand and wait for [the downturn] to destroy us,” he says. “It’s a war - a war for getting customers to get out there.”
It’s certainly a war in Malaysia, where state-backed Malaysia Airlines has been moving towards a budget model. Promotional battles between the two have been growing in intensity, prompting a barrage of criticism from Fernandes. “Leading brands are innovators and not imitators - like one other airline that starts with an M and ends with an S,” Fernandes recently told the Global Brand Forum.
Fernandes’ devotion to brand-building marks him out. At a time when most global airlines are cutting budgets, Fernandes has announced plans to increase his adspend by 30 per cent, claiming that recession is the best time to build brands. AirAsia is certainly doing its bit to help people keep travelling — the company recently gave away 500,000 free tickets for more than 20 destinations as part of a regional campaign. “We are fairly adept and switched on. We are obviously giving good value anyway and will continue to do that”
A belief in branding, however, does not translate into a belief in agencies. AirAsia handles most of its creative in-house, and Fernandes seems to have scant regard for ad agencies. “They have a high staff turnover and they don’t live the brand. My creative director knows me inside out, she knows the brand, lives with our staff. Most creative directors come here for few hours - they don’t see the pain we have gone through.”
Fernandes is clearly keen to see more Southeast Asian brands succeed. The problem for companies in Asia, he argues, is that they are not investing enough in their brands to make it on the global stage. “Asians are very empirical. If they put money into branding they ask where the result is on sales. It’s a very hard thing to quantify.”
There is another obstacle to face - the way Asia treats its home-grown brands. Fernandes argues that MNCs are more easily accepted in Southeast Asia than domestic brands. For the local boy made good, it’s become a pet hate.
“People would rather welcome brands from outside of Asean. That’s what we have to change,” he says. “I don’t think I have fully changed it, but I have certainly been working towards it.”
Tony Fernandes’ CV
2002 CEO, AirAsia
1992 Regional vice-president, Warner Music Group, Southeast Asia
1990 Managing director, Warner Music, Malaysia
1987 Financial controller, Virgin Records, London
