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Airstream Trailers and Social Media

Monday, April 19th, 2010 by Martin Jacobsen

(One of the first Airstream Trailers. Source: http://bit.ly/cKlaay)

On January 17, 1936, Wally Byam, founder of the Airstream Trailer Co., introduced the Airstream ’Clipper’ trailer. The ‘Clipper’ was the first Airstream Trailer – and it marked the beginning of a well-known American brand and icon.

At that time, more than 300 trailer builders operated in USA and the competition was fierce. Out of these +300 trailer builders, Airstream Trailer Co. is the only company that’s still alive. And why is that? Because Wally Byam and his team were focused on extremely high quality and innovative solutions and kept on enhancing the quality of the trailers. Today, more than 60% of all Airstreams ever built are still used to grant their owners luxurious accommodations when travelling.

(Airstream owners on a joint adventure. Source: http://bit.ly/dbCqYB)

But what has Airstream Trailers got to do with social media?
Social media has revolutionised the Internet, and there are no limits to the omnipresent homage of how social media has reinvented contact, interaction, communities, communication, user-driven content, innovation and collaboration. Just to name a few. And, don’t get me wrong, we fully recognise that social media are absolutely brilliant tools in strengthening these concepts. No doubt about that. But social media didn’t invent these. Social media is but a mere tool for these notions.

The Airstream Trailers, known as the ‘aluminium skinned, gleaming silver bullets’, became a massive success despite their relatively high price. Why? Because what Wally Byam and the Airstream team did, was to offer more than just selling a product:

  • They established a community around the trailers – the The Wally Byam Caravan Club (www.wbcci.org). What we today would call a brand community.
  • They created long-lasting relations with their customers. What we today would call relationship marketing.
  • This club would meet up several times a year in several different areas in the US, traversing the highways together. What we today would call a tribe.
  • Furthermore, the WBCCI generated more rallies, annual trips and loads of feedback on improvements to the trailers. Result? Byam’s idea of “Let’s not make any changes – let’s make only improvements” allowed his team to use the ideas of their customers to enhance the trailers – based on the experience from the customers. What we today would call user-driven innovation and idea generation.

These things, combined with Byam’s and his teams’ width, resulted in a massive number of improvements to the trailers. Due to this, Byam managed to secure a vast number of patents. All because he and the Airstream team engaged with their customers and responded to their feedback. And this all happened in the 1940es and 1950es.
 Our point? Social media are excellent tools, but what they do is nothing new. The technology is but a mere enabler. The idea and the people empowering it are the real drivers.

The Airstream case is interesting, as it is an example of how ‘new’ thinking (or Integrated Thinking) already took place before the terms were even coined. Do you know of any other examples where ‘new’ thinking took place many years ago? If so, feel free to comment.

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airstream, http://www.wbcci.org/ and http://www.diefahrbar.de/history/index.html

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Posted in Business design, Integrated Thinking | 3 Comments »