JetBlue is one of the top airlines associated with the web. Partially, that’s because the brand is so new: Created just 10 years ago, JetBlue came of age when the Internet was already fairly developed. As Marty St. George, senior vice president of marketing for JetBlue explains, that means the company needs to do most of its outreach via digital media. Since the goal of most of that outreach is to get consumers to log on to jetblue.com, a lot of that buy revolves around search and banner ads.
When it comes to social media, it’s less about direct sales and more about brand building, and JetBlue has embraced it with gusto. St. Georg e caused a stir last year when he challenged ad agencies interested in working with the brand to look him up on Twitter.
At this writing, JetBlue has 1.6 million followers on Twitter, which is more than any other airline, and about 500,000 fans on Facebook, which is the highest in the industry next to Southwest Airlines. Following its “go where your customers are” philosophy, JetBlue has recently tried its hand at location-based services and is planning to release a smartphone app this year. Mashable recently spoke with St. George about his views on social media, price-conscious customers and the airline’s handling of the very public meltdown of flight attendant Steven Slater last summer. Below are some excerpts of that conversation.
Q&A With Marty St. George, Senior Vice President, Marketing, JetBlue
I first heard about you when Advertising Age ran a story about you saying that you were tell ing ad agencies who were...
