How Does «The Singapore Girl» embody SIA brand personality?

The personalization of the Singapore Airlines brand is the mixed male and female cabin crew, where especially the flight stewardesses commonly referred to as Singapore Girls have become very well-known. 

SIA engaged French haute-couture designer Pierre Balmain at the inauguration of the airline in 1972. He designed a special version of the Malay sarong kebaya as the uniform which later became one of the most recognized signatures of the airline. A very designated and visual part of the entire brand experience. The Singapore Girl strategy turned out to be a very powerful idea and has become a successful brand icon with an almost mythical status and aura around her. 

The Singapore Girl encapsulates Asian values and hospitality, and could be described as caring, warm, gentle, elegant and serene. It is a brilliant personification of SIA’s commitment to service and quality excellence. The icon has become so strong that Madame Tussaud’s Museum in London started to display the Singapore Girl in 1994 as the first commercial figure ever. Singapore Airlines also runs one of the most comprehensive and rigorous training programs for cabin and flight crew in the industry to make sure the SIA brand experience is fully and consistently delivered.

The airline’s Singapore Girl, its depiction of its stewardess, focuses primarily on caring for passengers, hyper attentive to their needs and concerns. The campaign certainly helped build the airline’s reputation for superior service.

In the latest brand campaigns company has used the Singapore Girl to show the processes that the airline goes through to provide such a superior experience. 

                                                          Making of "The lenghts we go"

The Singapore Girl is also shown traversing the globe to find the finest products to enhance the in-flight experience. 

She is seen sourcing jasmine tea leaves from the highlands of China, selecting reels of art house movies from Venice (the airline has supported supporting the 70th Venice Film Festival) and choosing the softest leather from Scotland for the plane seats.

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The Singapore Girl strategy has an almost mythical status and aura about her. She is the personification of all Asian values and hospitality, best described as caring, warm, gentle, graceful, elegant and sincere. A living, breathing icon that links SIA's commitment to service excellence.

SIA is renowned for its rigorous and comprehensive cabin crew training. Its attention to detail is legendary. It has a brand manual that extends beyond how to move and walk in the body-hugging uniform into what shade of lipstick and nail polish (and recommended brands). It frowns upon loud personal jewelry and dangling earrings and limits flight attendants to wearing simple earrings and an elegant watch (preferably an upscale brand). It has approved hairdos and foundation shade, and advises on how to politely refuse to serve yet another "Singapore Sling" beverage to a passenger on the verge of inebriation. SIA "protects" its Singapore Girl so vehemently that once she slips into her uniform, a Singapore Girl is not allowed to take public transportation, but is limited to taxis and limos.

The Singapore Girl clearly has contributed immensely to the success of SIA's brand strategy and its entire positioning around customer and service excellence.

Everything about Singapore Airlines exudes youthfulness, from its industry-recognized youngest fleet with an average age of six years to the Singapore Girl, whose average age is 25 years. All female flight attendants stop flying when they are 32, and are transferred to become ground staff. Cruel and politically incorrect perhaps - in other countries - but not for a company whose brand rests on the youthful, ever nimble and efficient Singapore Girl. Only a handful of people realize that all models in SIA commercials are actual Singapore Girls, and not professional models. A successful image it has been developing and perfecting for almost 40 years. Tapping into the fountain of youth is a means of SIA's brand survival.

The Singapore Girl epitomizes the best of all that Singapore Airlines offers. 

In addition, the recent research organized by SIA showed that service is the most important thing passengers looked at when choosing Singapore airlines.

Source: SIA corporate website, brandchannel.com website, SIA official page on YouTube