Transcript

Bennie F. Johnson

Hello, and thank you for joining us for this special episode of AMA’s Marketing / And. I’m your host, AMA CEO, Bennie F. Johnson. In our episodes, we explore life through a marketing lens, delving into conversations with individuals that flourish at the intersection of marketing and the unexpected. We’ll introduce you to visionaries whose stories you might not yet have heard of, but are exactly the ones you need to know.

Through our thought provoking conversations, we’ll unravel the challenges, triumphs, and pivotal moments that have been shaped by marketing. Today, my special guest is none other than Mollie Hanson. Mollie is the Chief Marketing Officer for Airstream, where she oversees all of the brand positioning, including advertising, retail marketing, PR, consumer research, and brand partnerships.

Through her career, has demonstrated a deep understanding of consumer motivations and the ability to bring immersive brand experiences to the public. Emphasizing a customer-centric approach, Mollie and the team have reinvigorated Airstream status as an American icon, a true American brand. For a new generation of outdoor enthusiasts, Mollie is a firm believer in understanding the complete customer journey is paramount to a brand success.

She’s a student of customers’ emotional responses and motivations during the journey and how those leveraging feelings that drive sales. Prior to coming to Airstream, she worked in the athletic footwear space. We’ll talk a bit about that in the apparel industry. In those roles, she redefined how consumers could interact with brands. Mollie, thank you for joining us on the podcast.

Mollie Hansen

Thanks for having me, Bennie.

Bennie

It’s so much fun to talk about journeys and unexpected journeys. Tell us a bit about your story. I smile and I jump ahead because I know where it’s going to go, but I want our audience to hear. So how do you arrive at Airstream?

Mollie

I’ve been very fortunate throughout my career to be able to work for brands that I feel passionate about. And I started my career in, you know, athletic, apparent footwear, as you mentioned. And through that journey, one of the things that we needed to do was create a snowboard booth. I was working for Columbia Sportswear and some of my creative friends in Portland said, you know, it would be really great if we got a little airstream. And we made it into our snowboard booth and then we could have meetings in there. And I thought, I was living on a houseboat at the time and I thought, that’s interesting. So we procured one and we turned it into our snowboard booth. And I fell in love with the brand and I fell in love with this idea of being able to have all my living quarters mobile. So my houseboat was mobile.

Bennie

Mm-hmm. Hahaha.

Mollie

And an Airstream. So I bought one myself and I fixed it up and put it in the mountains. I was living in Oregon at the time. And then 20 years later, I think 15, 20 years later, I’m working at Converse in Boston. And I had a picture of my trailer in my office, affectionately known as Sylvia. And one of my employees asked me about the picture and I said, that’s Sylvia and she’s, she’s out in Washington state. And I told her the whole story about my love for Airstreams and the brand. And she’s like, well, my old boss actually works there. And I said, you’re kidding. Wow. Well, let me meet her. So I met her and learned about her position. And I said, I’m originally from the Midwest and there’s only a few brands in the Midwest that I’d ever moved back for and Airstream’s, one of them. So if you ever hear of any opportunities there, let me know. And she did about six years later and I was introduced and came here and fell in love. I was already in love with the brand, but I thought if I was ever gonna make the switch, because most of my career had been in athletic peril and footwear, I had to make it for a brand that I really felt passionate about and Airstream was perfect.

Bennie

Wow. Great. Let’s talk about that kind of passion for a brand. When we think about the kind of, the true American iconic brands, Airstream is one of those spaces. You’ve been around as a brand since the early 1920s. So you get to be in a space where I am with these hundred year old brands that have these new contemporary meanings that are both old and new at the same time.

Mollie

Yeah, it’s an amazing legacy that you have. And I think it’s a challenge for marketers to stay relevant. We have a rich history. have an amazing community of people that have kept the brand alive through good times and bad. They’ve always, I would say the customers have been at the forefront of keeping the passion for the brand. But the product you know, our iconic travel trailer product, we have several products today, but that when you think about the brand, you think about what we affectionately call the silver bullet. And there’s so many generational stories that are told about that brand. went with it as a kid, and then the kid grows up and then they have children and they want to go see the country in a different way. And so those generational stories and that storytelling gets handed down and people, keeps the brand alive. But at the same time, technology, marketing tactics, the way we introduce to consumers, the way that we talk to consumers, it all evolves. And so we have to evolve with it, even though we’re almost 100 years old.

Bennie

So tell me a bit about what an introductory conversation looks like today with a new consumer?

Mollie

We’re very fortunate in the fact that we have great brand awareness. People know, when I first started there, there was this concern that people knew the brands because they still are on the road from, you know, years past, but they weren’t really sure we were still in business. And so one of the big hurdles when I started was how do we let them know we’re still thriving? We’re in business here in the middle of Ohio and going and so a lot of that was telling new contemporary stories and new products and getting people to hear from our customers that we were still alive. You know, we’re still making beautiful products. They may look like the old products to people who don’t have, you know, a trained eye for the nuances, but yeah, we’re still, we’re still going. And I think we’ve overcome that obviously, spend a lot of time and energy telling those stories and letting the customers do the work for us, really in that sense. Very fortunate to have a community of people that want to talk about their love for Airstream. A lot of brands have to pay for that. And we, fortunately enough, don’t have to.

Bennie

Right. But what I think it’s really wonderful when you think about it, there are brands that pay for it, and then there are brands like yourself that earn it. Right? Because you’ve been in this space and you’ve earned that connection point. So you’ve got a brand community of adventurers who are naturally all seeking adventure. How do you decide what stories you elevate? I can only imagine how many…

Mollie 

Yes. In one way, shape or form.

Bennie

You know, interesting, bizarre, fun, sweet, sentimental, and absolutely crazy stories come from the road.

Mollie

Yeah, I think for us, from a marketing perspective, so you have, we want to tell people we’re still making them, that we have a history, and also that people are making new memories on our products. And so there’s this, there’s this combination of letting people know, yes, we are still the same company. Yes, our products are quality. But also that you can have new adventures and different adventures today than you may have had in the 50s in the same product. And I think that there’s a thread that goes throughout all of that. And that is people, curious people who want to see this country and this world in a different way. And yes, you can go camping in lots of different products, but I think Airstream resonates with people. And I think largely the community has a lot to do with that.

Bennie

All right. When we talk about community and we talk about Airstream in an American sense, how has it been for you all getting ready for this year? We’re based in DC, so we’re right at the heart of celebrating America’s 250. What are some of the moments that you’re thinking about here?

Mollie

Yeah. Well, we have a rich history with our founder Wally Byam. We have lots of information around when people from other countries would come to this country, he would take them on caravans and trips to see this country, to really see it, not fly over it, go through it, go to Yellowstone and go to the national parks and see things. And so we have a long history of introducing people to what’s really happening in the country, across the country. We partnered with the A250 group and we provided them with trailers and they’re taking them across the country recording stories in them of Americans and for the 250th anniversary of America. So we’re proud to be part of that and proud to be capturing those stories of people.

Bennie

It’s one of the things that you’ve been responsible for and has really transformed your brand is extending your brand through brand partnerships. Tell me a little bit about what makes both productive and provocative partner for you. What partners do you get excited about this kind of unexpected joy of working with?

Mollie

Well, I’ll tell you about a recent collaboration that we did with, it was a three-way partnership with Stetson, the Four Sixes Ranch, which is an iconic ranch. Both of those are over a hundred years old, so they have a rich history with their brand. And I think it was a little unexpected for us to partner with, you know, we love the aesthetic. And we love the idea, but it’s a whole new audience to us that may not have known about our brand. And so when we do these collaborations, some of them we do because it makes sense. Pottery Barn is a great example. They have a beautiful, full aesthetic. know that our existing customers understand that brand and it resonates with them. So that makes perfect sense. But then sometimes you take risks and you go into areas and try to find new customers, people who might not have thought about you in that way. And we might not have made a product that speaks to you, but you understand the ranch or you wear a Stetson hat or you understand the aesthetic that goes behind that. And they have this long history like we do. And so you can bring, that’s an unexpected one where the pottery barn, Tommy Bahamas, some of the other collabs we’ve done were probably more expected because we already knew our customers.

Bennie

Alright. Right. So when we think about customer journeys, when do people decide that the Airstream life is for them?

Mollie

Well, we separate our customers into two groups, dreamers and streamers. And dreamers are people that have an affinity for the brand. They know about the brand and they love us, but it’s kind of a someday. Someday I’ll own an Airstream or someday I’ll do that. And I think there’s been this perception over the years that RVing in general was for retired people and it’s really not. And the more customers we talk to, the more you hear, I wish I’d have done this sooner. I wish I’d have done this when my kids were little. So what we try to do is through that journey, let them know that now’s a good time. Why wait for someday? And so we try to make dreamers streamers and the streamers are the people obviously that already own. And we use the streamers as a way to communicate that. Think brand, they’re brand advocates and there’s lots of apprehension and we’re obviously a luxury product. And so we have some things to overcome, but letting people know from the people that are already doing it, that you can do it. It’s not as complicated as you thought. It makes sense over time. The members you’re going to make are the ones that your family or that you’re going to remember forever. And it’s worth it to do it now and not wait.

Bennie

It’s so interesting, but my wife’s family grew up RVing and so it was completely foreign to me growing up. When we first met I was like I didn’t understand, I’m a city kid. I didn’t understand the space in there. Then skip ahead to the last few years, I remember hearing the stories that you said of kind of making these lifestyle modifications in the midst of the pandemic and hearing all these stories of families and kids and all these wonderful benefits of this RV life.

Mollie

The pandemic, we internally referred to it as the sugar high because what happened was, the pandemic was coming and it happened and then we shut down, I think it was for six weeks. And during that time, we had a lot of time to think about it. I thought, boy, there’s no better way to travel right now. I can’t fly. I have relatives all over the country or friends I want to see. I have my own little pod. I can put my own food in it. I can be safe and clean and, and I, you, we weren’t wrong. And so coming out of that, we hit records. We had a record business. Couldn’t meet demand because everybody figured it out. And I think it brought so many new people to the lifestyle, which is a blessing and a curse in some ways. The blessing is we didn’t have to, as a marketer, I didn’t have to go get them. They were coming. I had to retain them. So I wanted to retain them as customers and make this a situation where they didn’t just purchase. It wasn’t a pandemic purchase. It was something that they were gonna fall in love with and stay with it because the ultimate goal was all those people that came. We wanted them in the lifestyle long-term.

And so we’ve seen a little bit of shift back. We definitely shifted back from, you know, acquisition, would say, prior to the pandemic. During the pandemic, we were just retention. Our marketing efforts were all about retaining customers, giving them experiences, giving them all the information they need on how to use the product. I didn’t worry about getting the word out or awareness or any of those things. And now we’ve shifted back. All the people that we’re thinking about it, got into the lifestyle, and then we’ve retained them the best we could, and now we’re back to acquisition, thinking about getting the next generation of customers aligned with our brand, and getting people, now that they can fly, and there are other ways to, you have to tell the stories about why this is a different lifestyle.

Bennie

Right. Is there a bit of, we talked a bit about aspiration, is there a bit of an aspiration ladder within the product and the brand? You get a starter point and my dreams of my first Airstream might be different than my second.

Mollie

It’s really comfort. Again, internally, you always say two feet, two years. So lots of times when it comes to the trailer business, people will come in and they’re a little apprehensive. They might not have towed before and they’re not really sure. And, isn’t that little one cute? And so they go for the small one that’s manageable. And then very quickly realize it’s a lot easier than you thought. And towing isn’t a big mystery, you just have to adjust a few things. And so then they come back two years and get it two feet bigger. So you might start out with a 19 and then two years later, you’re in a 22 foot trailer. And so that’s really as your comfort level, you realize, oh, I can use more space. I’m not scared of more space. And so you gradually go up the ladder.

There’s also products that are more suited for other lifestyles. So, you know, a very active lifestyle versus maybe spending more time in one, you know, a weekend person who just goes out for a couple nights on the weekends versus somebody who plans on spending months and months in a trailer. We make trailers for all those different scenarios. So there’s a lot to choose from.

Bennie

Mm-hmm. So we talked a lot about Airstream in the sense of the American commerce and the American, but you have a really strong global marketing background and you guys have a really strong global customer base. So talk a bit about how does Airstream show up outside of the Continuous 48.

Mollie

Yeah, by and large, mean, our business is much bigger in the US, but we have had a presence in Europe and Japan for over 20 years. And so some countries have a more mature RVing space. There’s other companies doing it, there’s facilities, there’s campgrounds, and then there’s other countries that are excited by it, but they don’t really have the infrastructure to support it.

So you have to think about those countries. What is the experience that people want to have? Where do they want to go? What are the facilities that they have? And then you have to build products. So we today in Ohio build products for Europe, for lots of countries around the world. And they’re all built in Jackson Center, Ohio. But with the environments that are going into, keep in mind, so different electrical systems, different campground necessities, things that we’re accustomed to here are not the same in all countries. So you have a lot to do on the product side and developing the right product. When it comes to communication, it’s the same philosophy of using the community and the Airstream owners to tell the story. It’s authentic. It’s one of the blessings, being the chief marketing officer for a brand that has a community that wants to talk and tell stories. So we utilize them and they do a lot of the heavy lifting on the communications.

Bennie

One of the things that I think is powerful and is really, friend, one of your superpowers is your proximity to the community of customers and your proximity to production. Talk a bit about the fact that your headquarters, your brain trust, and your build trust are all there together. You get that sense of being right there with the community, but also right there with the production.

Mollie

It’s such a, from my background, it’s such a unique experience. And I remember when I came for my first interview, I had worked for, you know, big brands, but all their production was in another place. So I worked around product development, you know, all the corporate functions. But I didn’t really have the day-to-day interaction with production. And I will tell you, my first… trip through the factory to interview was one of these moments. Well, first of all, I should have worn comfortable shoes. Secondly, I was just taken back. It really felt like Americana to me. Like it was hardworking people building this beautiful product and had been for generations and there was generations of people working in the plant.

And you felt it the minute you walked in. And I think today you feel it too. And we have, we have tours and it’s a part of a marketing strategy to have tours because I think as potential new owners or people interested in the brand, when you see a handcrafted product and you realize the effort and the number of people that touch your product, there really is this connection that you make to it. And you know, we do a tour for that very reason so people can see how they’re made. There’s nothing to hide here. We want to show you what’s the value in the product and what it takes to make the product. So I think for me, it’s been a luxury to be so close to production. One, I understand the product better than I’ve understood any product I’ve ever worked for because I had to because it’s being built right below me. And anytime I have a question, I can go down on the floor and find out. I can go see the materials that we’re using in the cushions. I can go see the way things are built. And as a marketer, that’s a dream because in the past, you’d had to, you’ve got a sheet of paper that told you all the specs of a product. And in this particular case, if I want to know about the new air conditioning system or something that I have to market, I can go down, see how it’s installed, see why we made a decision. I can talk to engineers, like what’s the value proposition here and whatever choice we make for these products. And it really does make a difference. It really does from a marketing perspective. But it also tugs on your heartstrings because I know it’s a huge responsibility. It’s one thing as a marketer to know I’m trying to sell a product, I’m trying to get people into the lifestyle. It’s another to feel that there’s a company behind you. And when I walk through that plant and realize that what I do gives people a job and it keeps them employed and it, you know, it’s a very family atmosphere. We have Christmas breakfast for all the employees. give turkeys away at Thanksgiving. We give hams away at Christmas. Like you get to know people and there’s a responsibility as a marketer to not only sell things, but also to to keep people employed and to keep the business running.

Bennie

When you think about Airstream’s impact, right, we talk about it across generations with the employees, but it also has a familiar responsibility as well across generations in families. You know, when you look at, and we talk about this sense of adventure, you’re really a keeper of those family stories and traditions, right? I’m sure you’re…

Mollie

For sure.

Bennie

You know, those piloting an Airstream today, you know, who grew up with their grandparents taking them on the road, have a sense of connection.

Mollie

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And we hear those stories. We also hear how young families are really wanting, well, the pandemic opened up, right? Because you didn’t have to go to school. And so lots of people took their kids on the road and rather than reading about the Grand Canyon, they got to see it firsthand. And I think those real experiences got people thinking about, like this is, you know, in a world where we spend so much time on our computers or on our phones, there’s something to be said about people really wanting a connection. And I think we hear it all the time. I took my kids to this resort or I took them on this extravagant, you know, trip to wherever. The one that they talk about and the one they remember most is the one that we took them camping. And I think because there’s things to overcome. I think you’re working together as a family. There’s things you have to do together and you’re in a real environment doing real things.

Bennie

Okay. Now let’s think about that as a metaphor for the work that you do with your team. So you’ve got a nimble group and you’re based in Ohio and you’re marketing and branding these products around the world. What are some of the lessons you lead for your team in terms of taking on this challenge?

Mollie

I think us being connected to the community, staying on top of it, with those tours and with the fact that we have factory service, we have customers in our space all the time. We have access to customers. And I always encourage our team to make those connections and to really just talk to people because I think… I think that’s one of the golden things that we have. And it’s a way for us to really, not only do they feel like they’re connected to us. So we have customers come in all the time and come right upstairs to our corporate office and look us up and, Molly, and, you know, and talk to us. It’s very, you know, for a brand our size, it’s kind of unheard of, but also we have to make an effort to talk to customers and they appreciate it. And they have a lot to say and what they say can really help our marketing.

Bennie

Well, I’ll ask this question. How does it feel to encounter an airstream in the wild? Knowing all you know and all you’ve experienced, you’re on the road minding your own business.

Mollie

Well, it’s funny because here you see more air streams than I’ve ever seen in my life because we’re transporting air streams all around. When I remember before I came to work here and was in central Ohio, you’d see them every once in a while and be like, oh, check that out. Now I see them all the time. And so it’s always exciting to see, you know, a trailer or motor home going down the road to a new customer because I know it’s going to be a new adventure for them. But at the same time, I have a trailer myself. I’ve had trailers for years. I have several actually, because I’ve kind of become a collector now that I’m, I say that loosely, but I believe in the products and I like to have those experiences myself.

Bennie

Right.

Mollie

And it’s always one of those things when you go to a campground and you pull up with an Airstream, if there’s any other Airstream in the space that will find you. And I’m somewhat of an introvert, like personally. And so I just know it’s going to happen. There’s going to be a knock on the door. They also have fun rituals where they’ll, you know, we have little flamingos that you’ll put on somebody’s door if they have an Airstream. And it’s just a connection point. There’s a club.

Bennie

Right?

Mollie

And the interesting thing about the club that supports us is that if you see an Airstream and you see red numbers across the top of them, that’s your club number. And it used to be before we had cell phones and whatever, you’d get a directory as a club member and you would see the number and you’d see the family name. And so if you were in a campsite and you saw the number, you could look up in your directory and say, that’s so-and-so. And it’s built a community of people that wanted to get to know each other. So. I love it, I love it when I go camping, but I know it’s going to be one of those experiences where if there’s any other Airstream, we’re going to be fast friends and we’re going to get to know each other one way or the other.

Bennie

So I’ll ask this question, what’s your next adventure?

Mollie

I can’t even believe it’s 2026. And so I haven’t really thought about that yet. You know, the thing about having an Airstream is I can do it anytime I want to. My Airstream is stock full of everything except fresh food, ready to go. I keep clothes in there, all my, you know, everything. It’s a home.

You know, I have had relatives in for the holidays and I have a second home here. So it was really helpful. So, I mean, I think people think about it traditionally as camping, but I think if you think about all the things you can do with it, you can take your home anywhere and have an experience. It could be that you wanted to go to a music festival or there’s a city that you’ve always wanted to explore and you want to have your own space. I mean, there’s so many things you can do that adventures pop up all the time, Bennie. I don’t necessarily, I’m not a huge planner. I’m a, hey, let’s go. And it’s easy. It’s easy.

Bennie

Right. I love, that’s the perfect commercial for this, right? This is the lifestyle you can be a part of that gives you expanse and it’s easy. So when you first came to Airstream, you came in as a customer already. know, sometimes we have brands that we come in and we’re learning, it’s right, but you were, you mentioned to me earlier that, you you were living on the coast and you’d worked at all these other brands and there were only, a handful of moments that would bring you back to the Midwest. And Airstream was top of the list. So in many ways, you are the chief customer officer. I think in looking back, even at the press release, your CEO referred to you as the consummate consumer whisperer. So that’s high praise starting off. What did that mean to be an active consumer?

Mollie

Yes, absolutely. Yeah.

Bennie

And I’m used to telling my team all the time, you’re not the target audience to get us out of ourselves. But in this case, you really were. You were living and breathing the product and then serving in this function. How does that drive and inform your consistent kind of delivery of understanding the consumer emotion, the consumer voice, and the consumer heart of your brand?

Mollie

Well, I’m a storyteller by nature. I went to school to be a journalist because I wanted to tell stories. And so I think for me, understanding the brand and I started off the conversation by saying, working for a brand you’re very passionate about makes you a better marketer. I’m not sure I could market or have been as successful if I didn’t believe in the products and I didn’t have a genuine understanding of the consumer. And so it’s interesting because I was working at Converse at the time and when this opportunity came up, I was thinking, how is my, yes, I’m a customer, yes, I understand the brand and I love it and I get it from how it makes me feel. I understand that part, but all my experiences in this whole other space, like how am I going to translate that?

And I’m so thankful for my experience with Converse because it was a storied brand with a rich history. And I think, they were very, they are still, they have this long history, but they don’t rest on it. They use it to their advantage in terms of communicating with the customer. So what I learned there about how to collaborate and keep your brand relevant, but also stay true to the history and tell the story that you’ve been around. You know, over a hundred years. I’m really thankful for that experience because when I came to Airstream, I understood the product, but I also understood that this was a lifestyle brand. And I think, I think a lot of people in the space, in this industry, it’s more of a product marketing conversation versus a lifestyle conversation. And so I really focused on coming from lifestyle brands to let’s focus on the lifestyle. And I understood it. So I had a little bit of a head start, even though I came from a completely different industry. And I used that to my advantage, since then, there’s so many things I learned being in the apparel and footwear industry that have translated into good storytelling, visual, digital storytelling that we do today.

Bennie

Right. So talk a bit about, you know, I’m really curious about your digital work with the storytellers. Talk about how you bring the open road to life in a digital way.

Mollie

Well, it’s ever changing, right? We’re in the midst of a huge transformation with AI and what AI is doing with how consumers get information, how we as companies create and distribute the information. So it’s a bit of a challenge to stay on top of it and to kind of predict how it’s going to affect. We, a lot of what we do as a brand, is we want to capture the customers. They come to our space first, usually they come to our website to get information. And we turn them into a lead that we then hand off to the dealers. We have an independent dealer body or retail body, and they then take that lead and start communicating with the customer directly. So our job in the process is to get attention, answer questions, motivate, inspire and then get people to interact with us. So then we can nurture them to the point where they’re interested enough to go to a dealership and to go experience the product themselves. And that is definitely changing with AI. How we attract the customers, the information that they used to come to our website to get, they can now get very quickly through AI tools. So they don’t necessarily need to come. So it’s evolving as we speak, trying to figure out what role is the website going to play in the future? Is it, what information is going to be relevant in the future to feed AI and the AI engines and agents to give them the right information and ultimately your website’s gonna be exciting enough where people still come to your website and you can turn them into a lead and send it to the dealer.

Bennie

Right, one of the things that you’ve prided yourself on is creating these experiences. So as you have a more broader diverse space of customers in there, how does that map with the digital experience versus the in-person touch and feel, try and buy? You made the comment about dealership space and how does that help your network of those experiences?

Mollie

Well, that’s just it. Storytelling, I mean, storytelling is one piece of it, but people are also now looking for a place to belong. They want something, they want to have, they want to know what they’re going to do with your products and how they’re going to use your products. So creating experiences or giving them opportunities to test out the product or to see more or to see other people, you can tell them about it. But now we’re venturing into the space where we want to give them exclusive experiences so they can come and really feel it for themselves in a controlled environment where they have, you know, Airstreamers, like I said, like Airstreamers. And so how do we bring those Airstreamers together? So experiences is a big part of what we want to focus on in the future.

Bennie

Right. So believe it or not, we’re in 2026, which means you’ve been running marketing at Airstream for 15 years. I know. I know. I don’t want to do the math. I don’t want to do the math. But I love the conversation, because often we have conversations in which marketing leaders aren’t able to have long-term impact. And you’ve been able to build, deploy, rebuild, deploy, and continue.

Mollie

No, don’t jump. Me neither.

Bennie

What’s some of the big lessons that you take away from the last 15 years? What are you most proud about in terms of this transformation that you’ve had with the brand? So many things we’ve been talking about, Airstream wasn’t doing 15 years ago.

Mollie

No, in fact, I often say when I do a tour, when I started, you know, we had X number of employees, you know, we’ve tripled and quadrupled that in some ways. So feeling part of growing a business has been very rewarding to me because it’s transformed the brand in a different way and got the brand to so many other new places. And I think that I’m most proud of that, that I’ve been able to look at it that way. I think also taking the brand from just being product focused and more of how do we become a brand that can collaborate with other brands. It’s a really unique opportunity because we’re a brand that other people want to partner with. we, you know, that’s, I have to probably learn to say no more than I have to go seek partners. And so, and that’s very, very hard to do when you have people coming to you with great opportunities. That’s probably the biggest challenge of the job is knowing what’s the right opportunity for the brand and how do we interact with other brands. I think that it’s imperative though that you do think about how you can do that. think partnerships and collaborations have been a, they’ve been a big opportunity for Airstream to venture out of our comfort zone, which is building product day in and day out.

You know, it’s gotten us into licensing different categories. It’s gotten us into an e-commerce space where we sell to streamers and dreamers alike, people that just love the brand. It’s also, we’ve created a place. You know, one of the things I think I’m most proud of is we built a heritage center. We had this rich history, but it was all kind of in the background.

I know, closet spaces and people’s minds about what happened. And we were able to pull it all together. And it was part of getting a new, we were getting a new building for our travel trailer plant. And as part of that, we isolated some space and were able to bring some of, had, we had collectors trailers that were just sitting out and we were showing people as they came, we’d walk them around and show them the trailers. And we thought, wow, this brand deserves a place where people can come and really absorb the history of the brand. And so we’re very fortunate to get that space and then pull all these products in and the stories people tell us when they come there. And we are able to really mine those stories and use those stories not only in a very personal, physical way. But also in the digital space. So we use those stories to kind of enhance the brand and tell people what we’ve done over time. It’s a proud moment for me to know that it’s gonna be one of those things that people get to go and experience for years to come.

Bennie

And I’ll ask you this question on the close. If you were to go today and purchase a brand new Airstream, what’s one new element you would want to have? You’re buying a new one today. What new feature, benefit, or fun would you add?

Mollie

I think some of the things that are happening with our product as it relates to battery power and the ability to go longer, further, off-grid camping, going places where you don’t necessarily rely on a campground. I think the evolution that’s happening right now in the space, both with electric vehicles and also with increased battery and solar power. It’s really going to change the lifestyle because you have a lot more opportunities to be able to stay anywhere you wanna stay. And I think for me, seeing how that goes and seeing where that evolution happens, I think it’s gonna be a game changer for a lot of our products in the future. I think it will become just part of the way we do business, but I think the energy we’re putting into it to make sure that you have an easy transition that you can really, really go anywhere, I think is very important to the future of the lifestyle.

Bennie

I think that’s a wonderfully dynamic metaphor to end our conversation on my friend. Having the ability to go further, be more adventurous, be more dynamic, and sustain an adventurous future. It’s a great way to think about the work you’re doing, great way to think about the brand, and a great way to challenge us all to be able to be more and better, right?

Mollie

It’ll enhance your life. It really, I’ve heard it over and over and over again from more people that it changed their life and the way they see the country, the way they interact with people, the people that they met on the road, the things they preconceived to be a certain way and when we got there and they got around a fire or they met people from different places that they hadn’t met. It fundamentally changes the way you see this country and the way we see each other.

Bennie

Wow, what a great way. We talk about storytelling often, but never do we talk about storytelling in which it co-stars you, your family, and the brand in such a way that you’ve talked about where we’re all central characters with the product, with the brand, with the experience, and the heritage. Mollie, thank you again for this really intimate conversation and sharing your experience and the experience building, developing, and living a brand.

Mollie

Thank you for having me. This has been a pleasure.

Bennie

And thank you all for listening to this episode of AMAs Marketing / And we’d love and invite you to learn more about Mollie’s work with Airstream. Check out some of the dynamic partnerships and unexpected ways in which Airstream shows up. And think about ways in which you, too, can explore an adventurous brand for the future. Thank you all.