Airstream Steers Current Momentum Into Long-Term Plan

Airstream is trying to make the most of unprecedented boom times today while continuing to overhaul the king of upscale recreational-vehicle brands for the long term, by strengthening and broadening its product line, its brand and its related services.

Sales of the silver-bullet-shaped travel trailers have reached wall-busting levels at dealerships this year – as for most of the rest of the RV industry – as a new cohort of customers has entered the market beginning amid the depths of Covid. Restrictions on mass travel, and lockdown loopholes favoring the outdoors, combined with continued strength in employment and income by upper-level consumers during the pandemic to give Airstream and its expensive trailers a boost that took CEO Bob Wheeler by surprise.

“We expected a big drop in business initially,” the chief of the Jackson Center, Ohio-based unit of RV-brand holding company Thor Industries told Chief Executive. “Instead, we’ve been delivered an enormous group of new customers that we might not have seen without the pandemic. That’s true across the industry. So how do we make sure we don’t squander this opportunity?”

For Wheeler and other top Airstream executives, the company’s top-of-the-line products, sterling brand, robust dealer network and state-of-the-art manufacturing plant are assets they’ve only begun to deploy.

First they’re trying to make a dent in a “historic” backlog. “Typically, we were out about 12 weeks,” even during the decade-long industry boom that began after the Great Recession of 2008 and 2009, Wheeler said. “Now, if our dealers didn’t take another retail order starting today, it would take us about a year to fulfill the retail orders in our system and to rebuild inventory.”

Wheeler said Airstream is trying to “grow our output in a controlled and intentional manner no faster than we can maintain and improve our product quality.” Covid cases among the workforce were a hindrance early, and labor is still at a premium today, though Airstream factory jobs are among the best available in west central Ohio.

“And there’s no quick automation solution to overcome the manpower issue,” Wheeler said. “That’s part and parcel of the brand we have built,” which depends on nearly artisanal attention to putting together an Airstream trailer more like a house than a car. Airstream has plenty of extra capacity within its existing plant footprint, he said.

Supply-chain challenges have developed into a game of “Whac-a-mole,” Wheeler said, in which “engineering has to stand by to re-engineer things sometimes on a daily basis. When a supplier says they can’t get us what we need, we have to scramble to look for alternatives. It comes down to substitutions.”

Proper handling of the flow of younger buyers and newcomers to Airstream, and to RVs in general, is another challenge. “We want to make sure the new buyers who’ve come to us out of convenience fall in love with the Airstream lifestyle, to make them lifetime customers,” Wheeler said. “We’re trying to build the business for the next 10 to 20 years.”

In that regard, Airstream is leaning into the remote-work trend and developing this phenomenon as a long-term feeder for the brand. To that end, for instance, the company is unveiling a new version of its 30-foot Flying Cloud model “with a specific floor plan that allows for a fully functional workspace,” Wheeler said. “It’s an office model with full living quarters with everything you’d need to work comfortably from anywhere.”

Increasingly, Airstream also is leveraging the appeal of its iconic brand. Its highly recognizable products are featured in lots of movies and TV shows, and celebrities including actor Matthew McConaughey and country singer Miranda Lambert have made the Airstream lifestyle part of their online identities. Airstream also is increasingly harnessing online content so other owners can tell their stories, in venues such as an online newsletter, The Rivet – a reference to the riveted aluminum panels that clad all Airstreams.

“One of the best things we have from a marketing standpoint is all our customers are evangelists for the brand,” Mollie Hansen, Airstream’s chief marketing officer, told  Chief Executive. “We elevate voices to tell their own stories as much as we can; we have such a rich community, and people are vocal about their love for Airstream. So we tell stories as well as provide information that helps people understand what they’re getting into.” Newbies’ guides share “things you’re going to need” to enjoy the Airstream lifestyle as well as “great places to go, and the resources to get there.”

Check out the rest of the article from Chief Executive here.