TAILS FROM THE END OF THE RUNWAY

Welcome to the first edition of Tails From The End Of The Runway, designed to be a mix of aviation, marketing and musings, all from life at the end of RAF Fairford’s runway in Gloucestershire.

You’ll probably know that RAF Fairford is home to the USAF and the U-2 Dragon Lady, it also plays host to regular NATO exercises, real time world events including the actions of POTUS with round the clock activity at Fairford at the start of January (much more in another edition!), and of course every July it transforms into and is centre stage for the Royal International Air Tattoo (RIAT), the world’s largest military airshow. All of this is a stone’s throw from where I live, and I wouldn’t want it any other way!

It was very convenient for when I was extremely fortunate to work for RIAT as their Head of Marketing for 14 years before founding Helen Webb Aviation Limited in 2022, my specialist aviation marketing consultancy.

I love aviation and I love marketing, and now I spend my career consulting, advising and supporting airshows, airports, training organisations, museums and charities with clear, audience-led strategies to achieve their marketing and growth goals.

Enjoy, and please do send feedback!

Moments That Shaped Aviation

Concorde

I couldn’t launch this first edition without opening with Concorde.

For me, aviation really began with Concorde. As a little girl in the 1970s, I saw this incredible embodiment of flight at Filton Air Days in Bristol where she was built. My Dad worked for an engineering company that supplied the aerospace industry, and he would be invited to these days, with me very happily in tow.

Later, during my Business Marketing degree, I spent a placement year at Renishaw PLC, a company founded to commercialise the touch-trigger probe invented for precision measurement challenges on Concorde’s Olympus engines.

So even my early marketing career was quietly intertwined with Concorde. And then, in another wonderful twist, I moved to the other side of Gloucestershire, to Fairford, famous for her test flights in the UK.

On 21 January this year, we marked 50 years since Concorde’s first commercial supersonic service in 1976 and soon we’ll celebrate the anniversary her first test flight on 2 March 1969. All these milestones still symbolise what happens when you decide it ‘can and will be done’: ambition, innovation, collaboration and bravery coming together.

Personally, one of the favourite aspects of Concorde, that I was very lucky to view at very close quarters back in November, is her famous ‘nose droop’. The hydraulically controlled system that allowed Concorde’s sharp nose to lower in stages during take-off and landing to improve pilot visibility, and then to be raised for supersonic flight. Fascinating to see it cycle through the full motion range.

On The Aviation Map

Aerospace Bristol

Concorde was my first aviation love and Bristol is the landscape it (and I) grew up in.

Aerospace Bristol is home to Concorde Alpha Foxtrot (G-BOAF), the last Concorde to be built and the very last to fly. The museum tells not only the story of supersonic flight but of the much wider Bristol aerospace ecosystem which still shapes UK innovation today.

Alpha Foxtrot stands proudly as the centre piece of the museum. She still looks ready to fly. And if you haven’t yet visited, it is a wonderful place for all the family and also available for holding business events and dinners, all of which are located under the wings of this beautiful lady - no I’m not on commission!

Find out more HERE

Aviation Marketing in Practice

Pricing

Pricing is one of the most under-valued levers in marketing, despite it being one of the stalwarts of the marketing mix’s four P’s (Product, Price, Place, Promotion). Under-valued but yet one of the most powerful. (I shall highlight other important areas to focus on in later editions).

Concorde’s premium fares were far more than just about covering costs, they signalled exclusivity, speed and, of course status, and aligned perfectly with the experience. A solid reminder that price is a huge part of the marketing and brand story, not just a financial (or finance departments) decision.

When I was at RIAT, pricing and ticketing were central to our marketing strategy. We used customer insight and segmentation to shape the three-tier pricing strategy ultimately contributing to sell-out shows. You can read more about this HERE

But it’s not just about pricing, before you can increase your prices, your positioning and customer experience must also align. It is at this point you can then grow revenue without having to just ‘shout louder’ about being ‘better’ or when that doesn’t work you have to discount your prices. Your customers must be able to see the value in what you are providing for them to justify the price and their purchase. That’s what Concorde did so well.

One Thing to Think About

If there is one theme I see again and again in effective marketing, it’s consistency.

If you have recently signed up for this newsletter, you would have received my ‘7 Marketing Mistakes and How to Fix Them’ and inconsistency was one of the mistakes featured. If you would like a copy you can download it HERE.

For the past 3 years I’ve consistently posted on LinkedIn 3 times a week with consistent themes of aviation and marketing. In fact, it was only last week that I had my most ‘successful’ post, a reminder that results compound over a period of time (in this case 3 years!), and very seldom overnight. You can see which one HERE.

The ‘success’ was in terms of highest interactions & engagements, impressions, comments and subsequent follows, but the real success was the fact that potential future clients contacted me about working directly with them. That’s the actual output of consistency, and not so called ‘vanity metrics’.

Thank you for reading the first edition of Tails From The End Of The Runway, please reply with any feedback you have.

You may have been inspired to visit an aviation museum, to take a wider view of your current marketing practices, to do something consistently (not necessarily marketing) and see what might result, or perhaps to book tickets to an airshow – and there’s a new airshow this year, Hampshire Air Festival that I am helping build.

Until the next time then, at the end of the runway.

Best wishes

Helen

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