Installment 5 - The Seventh IN of Internal Branding.

#7 – INthusiasm: Southwest Airlines Delivers the Seven IN’s all IN One

Why has Southwest Airlines been so successful and profitable over the past couple of decades when the legacy carriers have gone belly-up or bankrupt? Simply, it’s because their employees LUV the company and so do their loyal customers. Ironically, LUV is the ticker for Southwest on the stock exchange. You do not have to look past one of its founders – and probably one of the most influential people in the aviation industry since Juan Trippe of the now defunct Pan Am – to see why. The Southwest brand is engendered in Herb Kelleher who was its funny, charismatic, hard working, chain smoking, brilliantly shrewd and passionately competitive former CEO. Herb IS the seven INs – all in one. He would encourage employees to take initiative and figure out more innovative, smarter, better ways to move people at 35,000 feet; to get involved with the airline and the communities it serves, and feel included as part of a cult-like family of loyal employees. He invested in state-of-the-art equipment so Southwest continues to run like a well oiled, money-making machine today – as legacy carriers bleed cash and low-cost upstarts flounder. Thanksgiving tradition dictated that Herb would load baggage along side the ramp personnel over the busiest holiday weekend of the year. Herb’s enthusiasm is infectuous and is Southwest, and Southwest is Herb. And, you see Herb in the faces, and experience Herb at every touchpoint at which the 32,000 Southwest employees interface with their fiercely loyal customers who willingly exchange advance seat assignments and movies for a cheap ticket, bag of peanuts, and an efficient flight experience delivered by well trained, loyal employees who LUV their airline.

Along with 16 original employees, Herb recently celebrated the airlines 35th anniversary. When asked why he stayed so long, he responded … ”because of the sheer joy and invigoration of being with our wonderful People, trying to enhance their fun, job security and lives as a whole while also helping to democratize the skies by bringing the ‘Freedom to Fly’ to the American people. When I first started working at Southwest, only ‘rich people’ flew. Today, thanks to our beloved folks, everybody flies.”