Sport Aviation Marketing

general aviation’s blue ocean strategy

One of last year’s hottest business books was Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne. Leaders in the general aviation industry would be wise to order a copy. According to the authors, “red oceans” are crowded with competitors while “blue oceans” represent untapped market space with the opportunity for highly profitable growth. Among the strategies for leveraging “blue oceans” are the following:

1. DO NOT compete in existing market space. INSTEAD you should create uncontested market space.
2. DO NOT beat the competition. INSTEAD you should make the competition irrelevant.
3. DO NOT exploit existing demand. INSTEAD you should create and capture new demand.

I’ve written about this previously but it is worthwhile enough, in my opinion, to repeat: Women represent a blue ocean for the aviation industry. Only 5.8% of today’s private pilots are female. What’s more shocking is that the percentage hasn’t changed in 15 years. What’s going on here? Does it have to be this way? Are only 5.8% of women really interested in flying? I think not.

Consider the field of medicine. in 1970 only 7.6% of physicians in the United States were female. By 2003 that had steadily climbed to 25.8%. This is still seems low but, unlike the aviation industry, there has been consistent progress. The aviation industry needs to adjust it’s methods for going to market to reach women more effectively.

If the aviation industry could achieve what the medical field has done it could result in over 100,000 new pilots. At first glance that seems to good to be true. However, I think we’ve all become too complacent with the with the glut that the industry has been in since it peaked at 827,000 pilots in 1980.

Broadening the base of female pilots could be the shot in the arm that the industry needs. There have been several instances in the history of aviation where the number of pilots has doubled or even tripled in under 10 years. We need to think big here - let’s make it happen again!

So which company will capture this blue ocean? Cirrus currently leads the industry in sales - can they capture the female demographic? The majority of today’s male pilots learned how to fly in a Cessna - are they capable of training a new segment of women pilots? The sport pilot rule lowers the price for entry - can Flight Design CT, CubCrafters, or one of the other LSA designs gain the market? It just takes a commitment from an industry leader willing to think outside the box.

Sources used for this post:
Women in Aviation, International
AOPA
American Medical Association

[tags]General Aviation, Women in Aviation, Aviation Marketing, Marketing to Women, Blue Ocean Strategy, W. Chan Kim, Renee Mauborgne, AOPA, Cirrus, Cessna, Flight Design[/tags]

Add comment January 14th, 2006

cirrus supports women

Shortly after I posted about marketing aviation products to women I ran across this in the AOPA ePilot email newsletter:

THREE AOPA EXPO ATTENDEES TAKE FLIGHT WITH PATTY WAGSTAFF
Three lucky women won an hour-long flight in a Cirrus SR22 with aerobatic pilot Patty Wagstaff during AOPA Expo 2005 in Tampa, Florida. Cirrus Design hosted the raffle as a fundraiser for Women in Aviation, International, a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating scholarship and leadership opportunities for women in aviation and aerospace.

Nicely done, Cirrus.

[tags]Cirrus, AOPA, Patty Wagstaff, Aviation Marketing, Women in Aviation International, Marketing to Women, Online Marketing[/tags]

Add comment November 26th, 2005

innovative aviation marketing

Here’s an idea to stir up some controversy…

There has been little, if any, progress in sport aviation marketing since the dawn of time. The industry continues to use the same channels it always has. It continues to talk to the same audience it always has.

How about this: market your sport aviation product to women.

Before you laugh, think about it for a minute. Have you seen any Home Depot ads lately? Have you watched any car ads lately? Targeting women. Remember that episode of Northern Exposure when Maggie O’Connell built a Titan Tornado without the help of Maurice Minnifield? She even built the whole thing in one episode…

The aviation industry is way behind in it’s thinking about women and it has never been friendly to them. This is an untapped market that holds real potential for the companies that have the guts to go after it.

For what it’s worth, online marketing tactics are easily the most cost-effective and low-risk way to test innovative marketing tactics such as this.

[tags]Aviation Marketing, Marketing to Women, Online Marketing[/tags]

Add comment November 15th, 2005