ANA (B)

All Nippon Airways (ANA) became the largest airline in Japan in 2013. Having been designated as a domestic carrier by the Japanese government till the mid-1980s and Japan being the sixth largest domestic airline market, two-thirds of ANA’s passenger revenue came from the domestic market. However, the Japanese domestic population was decreasing at a significant rate; thus, the domestic market was expected to decrease. Also, plans of a super-high-speed rail and further improvement of current high-speed train systems would make air travel obsolete in many of the popular domestic routes. The key business problem that ANA faced was that amongst the changes in the Marketing 5Cs (Collaborator, Company, Competition, Context, Customer)—specifically, context (decreasing domestic population) and competition (high-speed trains)—how could ANA maintain/increase its business? As a way to resolve this problem, ANA’s management was considering to invest in the international market to enhance its global presence.
The case concentrates on specific challenges faced by ANA’s management that must decide whether to focus on the international market and, if so, which international route it should pursue. Further, management must decide whether to purchase the Airbus’s new super jumbo A-380 to increase operational efficiency and promote the ANA brand globally. The case provides details regarding the concept of product differentiation and the importance of aligning a firm’s product policy with its overall marketing strategy.
The main teaching themes of the case are as follows:
• To understand the basic concepts of product policy. The case provides an opportunity for students to understand a company’s choice of focus on product breadth, length, and depth
• To address the need to consider product economics regarding route choice and aircraft purchase as well as the basic concept of demand analysis and price elasticity by different customer types—business vs. economy class
• To address the need to consider how collaborators and competitors will react when choosing a specific product policy
• To address the importance of aligning product policies with the overall marketing strategy.
• To understand the firm’s customer base and to connect it with the overall marketing strategy