Living the Brand, an Innovation Success Story

The most innovative project I’ve developed and led is the creation of an aircraft simulation environment complete with functioning technology. I conceived this idea to advance the "One Astronics" go-to-market branding effort and to serve as a marketing tool to convey the depth and breadth of Astronics’ technology innovations. Here is the story of the problem, solution, and results of this fresh branding effort.

Background

In late 2017/early 2018, Astronics offered an extremely diverse set of technology hardware products for commercial aircraft, sold through 11 independent subsidiaries. As the new director of corporate marketing, my task at this time was to knit these subsidiaries together into a single power brand, the “One Astronics,” and host a public launch at the Aircraft Interiors International show in Hamburg, Germany.

I had previewed our booth at the show the year before and came away with two insights into the problems we were facing:

1. Our booth looked like Best Buy, with tables of random electronics goods for sale. There was no coordinated messaging and the booth felt extremely analog with no digital screens or presentations. While we were positioning at the corporate level as an innovative aircraft technology company, in front of actual customers we looked disorganized and old-fashioned. This was now a major disconnect.

2. Our own customers had no idea what we did. As I stood in the booth, listening and observing, at least 20 groups from major customers, including American Airlines, walked into the booth and asked me, “So, what do you do?” This was surprising and distressing, given that I’d been told that “everyone knew us” and our booth was 3,000 square feet, chock full of product. Customers didn’t understand how these electronic systems could be put to use in an aircraft.

I smiled to myself. This was a great challenge. Clearly, I had work to do.

Goals

I worked with the events team I’d inherited when I’d taken the job. Using my trade show planning methodologies, together we crafted up the show goals to present ourselves as a single company, improve an understanding of the solutions we offered, and demonstrate our newly defined brand promise of “Elevating Innovation.”

However, my real goal was to dig deeper. I wanted to help customers understand not only what we did, but realize the wider set of solutions, in the hopes of generating multi-product line sales. I wanted customers to realize they could purchase a host of cabin technologies from us – in-seat power outlets, passenger service air and light assemblies, cabin Wi-Fi equipment, emergency exit lighting, and more. How could I bring together these independent subsidiaries to “live the brand” as one integrated solution provider? How could I innovate beyond our competitors in this crowded space?

Strategy and Solutions

Based on research, observation, and analysis, I created a multi-pronged strategy:

1. Make the booth work harder, starting with booth messaging and digital presentation. We’d developed a fresh brand of “Elevating Innovation,” so wrapping the booth in coordinated graphics and messaging would be easy. We’d bucketed up our extremely diverse set of technologies into “solution groups – so evolving into solution kiosks with messaging and digital presentations would be easy. We secured a giant floor space, so putting up a screen with a coordinated video would be easy.

However, I felt it was not experiential enough. These improvements were more about storytelling vs. what I call “story showing,” and we were not truly living the brand of technology innovation. Our customers, aerospace engineers, like to see and feel exactly how things work, not just look at a pile of hardware or a virtual simulation. We would still experience a lack of sizzle in a very noisy marketplace.

Therefore, I proposed an additional strategy, something extremely bold that had not been done before at Astronics, or any other aircraft supplier as far as I could research:

2. Bring our story into the physical realm – create an “integrated demo” of 30+ working technologies in a simulated environment where customers could try them out as if they were sitting on an actual aircraft. We would include the new technologies we were launching at the show to generate maximum press coverage.

Finally, I proposed a third strategy:

3. Create a companion app for the demo to extend the reach beyond the show floor. The app would run on iPads in the booth so that any salesperson, from any subsidiary, could speak to all the technologies in the integrated demo and collect leads. This app could also be posted online to extend the use of the physical demo beyond the show floor.

None of our competitors or customers had ever taken their exhibit or messaging to this level. This innovative, experiential approach would be completely novel to help set our brand above and apart at an event where the promotional noise from 5,000+ exhibitors would be immense. Above all, with working integrated technologies, this display would prove Astronics' ability to elevate innovation for our exacting engineering customers.

Pitch, Collaborate, Design, Build

For our event kickoff meeting, I asked our booth designer to create a detailed drawing of Astronics’ diverse technologies showcased a simulated aircraft environment, complete with first-class and economy seats, overhead bins, inflight entertainment screens, and more. At the kickoff, I pitched the integrated demo idea and put on my imaginary hard hat, expecting criticism, shock, and pushback on the time and engineering it would require from the business units.

However, I was the one who was surprised.

The team was jolted out of complacency but also immediately receptive of my data, analysis, and creative concept. In addition to my usual product line sales and marketing coworkers, I’d included executive leadership on the call, and the strongest support came from them. My idea was resourced, approved, and funded that day. My team now had 3 months to design, build, and ship our integrated demo overseas.

I swung into full project management mode. I set up a project schedule, deadlines, and a shared spreadsheet, gathering up product drawings for design, and then later the technologies for actual integration. To save cost, I asked subsidiaries to contact some customers, and we were able to get the first-class and economy seats donated. We spent a long time deep-diving into technical details, especially around how to convert power from 220V to an aircraft bus 28V without excessive heat generation. Creating this tech demo required significant cross-business unit collaboration with sales, marketing, engineering, and executive leadership. Engineering lit up with this project and joked that if we added wings and an engine, it had enough real technology in it to fly.

I delegated the physical build and technology installs to my events manager and exhibit house, and then concepted and wrote the app, managing a software vendor to get it created.

The companion integrated demo app, used to describe all of the technologies in the demo and capture leads. The graphics tied in with our ad campaign and booth graphics as well.

In prepping to create buzz in front of customers, I also created significant buzz and positive energy inside the company. Now the business units were excited about coming together as a single brand.

The Result

At the show. I presented our new coordinated look, messaging, and innovative integrated demo at the show in April of 2018. Customers, press, and investors provided immediate enthusiastic feedback. For three days, the demo was packed with customers getting the “tour” and the press getting the story. Creating the experiential demo was key to creating a true understanding of our breadth of offerings, and I heard repeatedly: “I didn’t realize Astronics provided all of this.” We no longer looked like a disassociated set of technologies at Best Buy. We authentically “lived our brand” of technology innovation expertise, and not a single customer asked me what we did. We captured over 1,000 leads, more than 10x the year before. We generated a 25% lift in website traffic the month of the show. For the first time, we received writeups in all show dailies. At my invitation, press and customers took selfies while sitting in the demo and tweeted them out.

As the best measurement of all, we received invitations from Boeing, Airbus, and Delta Air Lines to come to their facilities and present all our solutions to their engineering teams in special “Astronics Tech Day” events. Through this innovative integrated demo, we’d captured attention and strongly positioned Astronics as a valuable, multi-solution supplier for the largest airlines and airframers in the world.

The final integrated demo, 30+ technologies including bin and seat occupancy sensing, in-seat power, inflight entertainment equipment, PSUs, lighting, and other technologies.

American Airlines getting “the tour” of the Astronics technology set.

Demonstrating new tech, wireless phone charging in first-class seats, for press

Ongoing Benefits. Today this demo continues to perform. I’ve set it up for investors and watched an understanding of Astronics’ value and strategy dawn. It’s traveled to various lobbies for special customer visits and technology demonstrations. It’s helped employees understand the wide set of solutions we offer and connect to the wider corporate story. Most valuably, it has helped generate cross-business unit sales.

In addition to the integrated demo, the associated app also continues to be of service. Sales teams use it to start presentations, conveying Astronics’ breadth and depth of technologies.

This demo was so successful in helping show the story for the commercial aircraft market, leadership asked me to build a second one for the business jet market. These integrated demos now serve as core sales tools used throughout the company every day.

The lux version of an integrated demo for the business aviation market, complete with installed disco lighting, 4K IFE, and an FAA-certified wine chiller.

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