Olivier Krueger, CMO Lufthansa Group – “Differentiating from old school marketing.”
Olivier Krueger, Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Lufthansa Group joined for an interview in advance of this year’s World Aviation Festival. At the conference, the CMO will participate in a fireside chat and two panels exploring personalisation techniques, consumer behaviours, shaping brand strategies and more.
Krueger was Chairman of the Executive Board of Lufthansa Systems, one of the world’s leading providers of IT services in the airline industry, before becoming CMO of Lufthansa Group, where he is responsible for marketing, brand positioning, loyalty, ancillaries and more.
This 10-minute interview is split into two halves. The first covers building an understanding of individual customers and the second navigates the complex sustainability landscape from a marketing and loyalty perspective.
The conversation began with a discussion around what it means to understand the customer and how this has evolved over time. The CMO explained that today, when it comes to this, “possibilities are almost endless. But at the same time, we are still at the beginning in our in our industry when we compare ourselves to others out there.” Breaking the discussion into trust and technology, Krueger highlighted the importance of establishing trust with the customer in order to unlock a wide range of benefits for both the customer and the Group.
From this foundation, the CMO delved into the role technology plays, pointing specifically towards data analysis, machine learning, and artificial intelligence as means to derive insight. Looking forwards, Krueger also touched on predictions around travel behaviour as one of the future growth areas, where knowledge of customer preferences and analysis of trends come together.
The second half of the interview scratched the surface of the expansive topic that is sustainability in aviation. Exploring the complex nexus of sustainability, marketing, and loyalty the CMO explained that for Lufthansa Group, it is important to talk precisely about what they do and where they are heading, highlighting the main technology levers being actioned and breaking from “old school marketing.” Exploring the complexities of sustainability in aviation, Krueger reflected on the frequent disconnect between the customer’s willingness to pay and their expectations for the industry.
The CMO also unpacked the potential paradox between loyalty and sustainability. Confident that it is not “an unsolvable conflict,” Krueger instead positions it as requiring a holistic approach, integrating sustainable practices into both the online strategy and the loyalty planning to “align the loyalty programme with eco-conscious values.” Here, the need to incentivise sustainable travel behaviours was discussed tying back into previous discussions around leveraging data to build a more accurate understanding of customer behaviours.
To hear directly from Olivier at this year’s World Aviation Festival, get your ticket now.
For more interviews with this year’s World Aviation Festival speakers see:
- Marcelo Mota, Commercial Director and CCO, Aeroportos Brasil Viracopos – “Tech is an extremely powerful tool to leverage competitivity and the success of business activities.”
- Interview with Mauro Oretti, Head of Operations, SkyTeam. The Sustainable Flight Challenge: Producing tangible results.
