A campaign to keep the skies alive
The situation:
It might come as a surprise that the world’s pool of qualified airplane pilots is aging out. They are retiring today at a faster rate than they are entering the field. The problem won’t just impact vacations and business meetings: the global humanitarian and missions infrastructure relies on small planes (and pilots) for the movement of people and goods. My client represented a group organizations across the industry, working together to solve a recruitment crisis.
The insight
Aviation programs tend to be small and their marketing underfunded, limiting their reach to local or regional audiences. Moreover, students researching programs find it difficult to compare the important differences across programs. By pooling their resources together, competing programs could actually benefit from greater reach and improved user friendliness. In other words, we could build a marketing funnel at the industry level with much greater effectiveness than any school could do on their own.
The strategy
We launched the “Unreachable No More” campaign with a new website, which would serve as a hub for recruiting efforts across the country. The site allows students to explore aviation careers, compare programs, and engage in YouTube-style content that interests them. Because research I conducted showed that our audience is highly motivated by a sense of purpose, the campaign focuses its message on the one billion people around the world who live in villages inaccessible by roads. Unless we close the pilot recruitment gap, millions will be cut off from food and critical supplies.
Focus on what matters.
I’ve helped dozens of brands cut through the noise.
Wesley Gant 