The four Latin American air freight carriers LAN Cargo, TAM Cargo, Mas Air and LAN Cargo Columbia, all members of the LAN Group by capital shares, decided to give up their previous names and operate under the single brand LATAM Cargo. Their step to corporatize the branding, thus ending the era of confusing name variety, was long expected by market observers.
One cargo group but four different names: This intransparency causing a lack of clarity will soon belong to the past. The rebranding process will be rolled out in the months ahead and be
finalized within three years, LATAM Cargo announced in a press release. So by latest 2019, each unit and division of Latin America's number one cargo airline will act under the new umbrella name,
giving the group members a visible corporate identity.
More than an image campaign
The proponents on LATAM's top deck concede that the common brand is part of an image campaign for enhancing the general market awareness and pushing the carrier's name further up front. At the
same time however, they emphasize that there is much more to it, pointing out that the branding decision symbolizes the group member's aim of acting as one instead of four, as done in the
past.
Streamlined processes and services
The results of this unification process will be, hopes the management, delivering unified and improved service quality to LATAM Group's clients. This includes offering the different local markets
served by the affiliates identical products going hand in hand with streamlined business processes. Another advantage are comparable cultural values shared by the four Latinos. In a nutshell, it
appears that the LATAM Cargo rebranding will enable the four associates to act from a position of strength as South and Central America's top cargo player, no matter if their home turf is Chile,
Brazil, Ecuador or in the case of 1992 incepted MAS Cargo - Mexico.
Internal factors play a key role for realizing the management's high-flying plans...
"In addition to representing the best attributes of each affiliate and offering consistent and impeccable service, this change also involves an internal improvement in relation to how we operate,
how we deal with problems and how we structure solutions," comments Cristian Ureta, Cargo Executive Vice-President LATAM Airlines Group.
The manager went on to announce that "LATAM Cargo will foster a culture of dedication to customers, with a strong focus on the development of projects that add value and significant improvements
to the service experience."
Quite an extensive work package!
... so do market developments LATAM Cargo can hardly influence
To accomplish these highly ambitious aims external factors will presumably play a major role, mainly Brazil's economic recovery, the by far most important market served by the LATAM Cargo
affiliates. Sadly enough, there is little evidence that the sombre mixture of economic and political crisis dragging the country down will be overcome soon.
Heiner Siegmund
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