Mango says competitor will ‘incur losses’ with R1 offer

25 August 2015 - 13:24 By RDM News Wire
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Plane seats. File photo.
Plane seats. File photo.
Image: Gallo Images/Thinkstock

Mango won’t lay a complaint at the Advertising Standards Authority. Nor will it name the competitor it claims has copied its “earlier campaigns and the communication currency used by the new player”.

Instead‚ low-cost airline Mango appears to have responded to FlySafair’s first birthday celebration offer of flights for R1 by saying: “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”

“Today‚ the competitor launched a R1 sale mirroring Mango’s first domestic sale in 2007 as well as the airline’s recent R1 sale when launching its Windows mobile app‚” Mango’s spokesperson Hein Kaiser said.

“Since the start-up competitor’s launch‚ Mango has noticed clear similarities between its earlier campaigns and the communication currency used by the new player.”

Kaiser suggested that rather than being injured‚ FlySafair’s offer made Mango nostalgic.

“The emotional drivers and tonality of our competitor has brought back fond memories of our first campaigns. Their current R1 sale‚ even more so‚” he said.

“Competition is always welcome and‚ when campaigns similar to our own are being run‚ recall is likely in our favour given the number of years Mango has already employed this tonality and these tactics.”

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Kaiser did‚ however‚ concede a difference in the two offers – “the competitor includes airport taxes in its R1 special whereas Mango has never sold inventory in the negative commercial space”.

“This effectively means that the new airline will lose more than R150 per ticket sold during the special‚ incurring losses‚” said Kaiser.

“Multiply this by the alleged 30 000 tickets available and the losses could be substantial.”

Kaiser was apparently “unable to comment further on the sale as it has not been possible to view the competitor’s website due to the site being unavailable”.

When RDM News Wire staff attempted to access www.flysafair.co.za‚ they received a “503 Service Temporarily Unavailable” message.

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