• by Barbie Romero , Yesterday

Kevin Hickey from Delta Air Lines also shares how his team selects brand partners, leverages surprise and delight tactics, and is using data to create memorable experiences for their travelers.

1. Delta has partnered with Starbucks and other major brands like Paramount+ over the years. This year a partnership with champagne brand Taittinger was formed to celebrate Delta’s 100-year anniversary. What criteria do you consider when forming partnerships to ensure they resonate with Delta's brand and customer base?

Our mission at Delta is to grow the most valuable portfolio of partners that attracts premium members and unlocks more value with customers in flight, throughout the travel journey - and beyond. When forming these partnerships, we consider several key criteria to ensure strategic alignment with our brand and customer base, with a focus on deepening with travel partners and expanding w/ lifestyle brands. In order to enhance brand credibility and build customer trust, we must strongly align with our values, mission, and positioning. To attract and engage target customers, we need to appeal to our customer demographics by understanding the needs, interests, and preferences of our most valuable frequent travelers. Ultimately, each key strategic partnership enhances the overall customer experience, whether through exclusive benefits, unique offerings, added conveniences and innovative services that make traveling with Delta more enjoyable.

2. There is a Facebook group managed by Delta called SkyMiles Life. Does customer feedback or social listening from this group or other channels influence which partners you work with?

Customer feedback and social listening from our community groups can significantly influence Delta's partnership decisions. They help us understand customer preferences and we gather insights from customer discussions to reveal preferences for certain products and services. They also help us identify emerging trends within our customer base, allowing us to stay ahead of market demands and choose partnerships that resonate with current traveler expectations. Customer comments provide valuable feedback on existing partnerships, indicating what works well and what doesn’t, which helps guide future partnership strategies. Overall, actively engaging with customer feedback and leveraging insights from social channels allows us to make more informed and customer-centric partnership decisions, ultimately enhancing brand loyalty and satisfaction.

3.  What is your favorite destination to travel to? Also, do you have a favorite Sky Club?

Delta flies to so many popular travel destinations from New York to Los Angeles and Paris to Tokyo, it’s hard to pick one favorite place to travel to. We most recently visited Cartagena in Columbia with family and friends, a modest 3.5-hour flight from Atlanta, which offered an incredible beach and city experience full of amazing culture, food, history, and people. With over 50 locations, our Delta Sky Clubs are a destination between destinations. Travelers can retreat to work or relax before their flight, and enjoy complimentary cocktails, fresh and healthy food options, fast, free Wi-Fi and more. Our latest offering has been the new Delta One Lounge, which offers world-class dining, indulgent wellness experiences and a new standard of elevated service, currently available in JFK, LAX, BOS and soon to be in SEA.

4. What’s an under-the-radar marketing tactic or channel that you’ve found surprisingly effective?

I am still a big fan of email, it’s one of our most effective traffic drivers and there’s no shortage of how we can leverage data for enhanced customer personalization. We also leverage community driven marketing to tap into user-generated content and testimonials that encourage customers to share their experiences and help us foster a greater sense of belonging. However, one of my favorite tactics has been how we leverage surprise & delight to unlock member value. Finding these micro moments that delight in the travel journey is harder to measure immediate success for, but it’s the right investment to enrich the customer experience and make our travelers feel more valued. This approach continues to help us grow loyalty and build relationships that extend beyond the transaction and last a lifetime.

5.  What advice would you give to your younger self?

The marketing landscape is constantly evolving, and technology today is more advanced than everyday marketing can keep pace with. Customer interaction is one of the greatest assets a company has, but it turns from an asset to a liability if no value is created. So, my best advice would be to feed your curiosity, continuously invest in test & learn and embrace data driven decision making. Marketing trends, tools, and techniques change rapidly. Understanding the importance of analytics and metrics early on and using data to guide your strategies and measure success will help you make informed decisions and optimize campaigns for lifelong learning of how to use data to influence customer behavior.