MRussell

These are all great examples, and while factory support of such "peer campaigns" is important, it didn't make the TBM, the Bonanza, or the Cirrus into the respective successes they are. It also doesn't account for Mooney's 10,000 units in operation (I love saying that). Sheer competitive product substance established each of those brands. In my days at BMW, we spent considerable amounts of time and resources to engage the BMW Car Club of America, which if you don't know is 70,000 dues-paying members in the USA alone. It is a multi-million dollar organization with a full calendar of social events analogous to our "fly ins," and aside from a license to use BMW's logo, the Club is wholly-independent from the automaker for 50 years now. The Club's member population purchases about 5000 new BMW models annually, and a countless number of pre-owned units. Plus the Club members influence an un-countable number of "non-affiliated" car shoppers to choose the brand each year. These are incredibly powerful forces and arguments in favor of a good social strategy. But the dirtiest secret in Marketing is that we will take a powerful word-of-mouth buzz any day over a high-cost engineered social media campaign or advertising strategy. And that buzz among buyers (original iPhone, Tesla Roadster, 1990 Lexus LS400, etc.) only comes from having a product with undeniable advantages in the "substance department." The problem today is that unlike the late 20th Century, buyers perceive the Mooney to be obsolete compared to newer designs. Obsolete in the areas of ergonomics, payload, and passenger comfort ("comfort" including passenger perceived safety benefit of CAPS). To that last point, in my experience selling sport sedans and sports cars, I have seen the incredibly fun manual transmission die a horrible needless death because of "spouse concerns." I truly believe those of us screaming "Mooney is a pilot's airplane!" are grossly underestimating how new-plane shoppers think. They simply *must* place a huge emphasis on the interests of their fellow passengers. It's a force as strong as anything we've discussed in this whole thread.

I hear you, but I'm well under 50 and I do product marketing for a living, and while I agree Mooney didn't make a reasonable effort on the social media front, I truly believe Product and Process come before the Promotion, meaning their poor social campaign was insignificant in the face of larger Product problems. At risk of offending my colleagues who have dedicated their careers to marketing, I simply don't believe we (marketers) can "create demand for" a nearly $1m product when the product is noncompetitive against its peers. We can create interest, enthusiasm, buzz, and we can spread knowledge or talking points, but true demand is filtered at this price point. In full disclosure the most expensive products I have taken to market topped out around $200k, but I saw the same pattern. The higher you go in price, the stronger the BS filter of the buyer will be. Conversely, I would propose we could use a good social media campaign to sell 10,000 pairs of Mooney-branded sunglasses at $99/pair in less than a month, so I'm not saying it's not a powerful medium (the President would agree, I suppose). I'm just saying the details of the product premises matter far more as the price category goes (way) up. Maybe I could say it more simply: I've never seen social save a flawed product. Buy time? Maybe, but not much time. Incidentally, I also disagree with critics of the high price Mooney was asking for its recent models. I believe the market supports that pricing for a complete product (Cirrus, Piper, and others seem to agree). I simply believe the buyers feel the Mooney product is not complete. Social media can't convince them otherwise.

I’m sorry guys, but Mooney didn’t fail this time because of a lousy social media strategy.

Not if COPA has anything to say about it, in the long run.

I’m sorry, but it’s the product even more than it’s the work of the marketing agency.

No offense but obscuring the facts and stats will not change them, and only serves to derail an otherwise excellent thread.

This is a very fascinating and thought provoking paragraph which I really enjoyed. I think the earlier poster who said you can’t compete with a short body Mooney today is right. But could you do a long body with smaller engines both NA and turbo? Probably. Could you widen the M20 body to compete with Bonanza and Cirrus packaging? My first guess is no, because you’d sacrifice the speed that distinguishes Mooney, yes even if it’s 12 minutes on a 500nm trip. Or you could take the current M20, widen it 5” (maybe not the whole 7”) using a full composite skin that hides all-new chute tethers and gives elbow room, and completely replace the dashboard/interior with a modern design (just steal from the car biz). But we’re talking hundreds of millions of engineering costs, and Mooney is broke, and then you’d still have a 4-seater most likely. The target demo often has 3 kids, not 2, as Diamond, Cirrus, and long ago Beech, recognize. But for 1 dude rocketing from point A to B on business or whatever, occasionally with a +1, nothing beats an M20.

Cirrus moved it, but didn’t REmove it. There’s a difference.

No fatalities have occurred in the SR20/22 after a chute deployment within recommended parameters. Also no post-impact fires.

While we're dreaming about how to make the #mooneylife look more fun, I'll throw in that I'd love to see Mooney somehow partner with Extra to create a special ACRO/NORMAL 'category jumper' based on the M20R, fortified for acro with skylights (above and below, please), spades, ergonomic supports, and composite reinforcement enabling them to advertise a huge G limit and flutter resistance, plus they could go for an awesome airshow routine to promote it. Not unlike the F-33C effort but a 21st Century interpretation. If blowoff doors and a fancy airframe parachute became part of that project, it would be icing on the cake. Here's to the dreamers.

I respectfully think you made a lot of unresearched or unqualified guesses in forming that post. It’s hard to do, but I wish you could see the enormous number of airline pilots, military and ex-military pilots, and other experienced aviators who have chosen Cirrus. 3 or 4 of them I know personally have come from Mooney ownership! The marketing is tuned to do what marketing must do (tap new audiences), but you can’t deliver 7000 piston singles in <20 years without capturing a very large share of veteran aviators. As to your bullet list, new Mooneys have the same autopilot with same panic button, and Mooney would give anything for a “pretty and open interior layout.” That leaves the chute on your list, and to categorize the pilots in a different brand of plane as “non-aviators” is a bit naive.

Your advocacy for more useful load is compelling (witness the success of the A36 and that the past two generations of SR22 have been legal 5-seaters after a 200-lb GW increase), I’m not sure how that valid point about payload cancels the market demand for BRS? From another angle, a lot of pilots advocate for TKS like it’s a potential lifesaver, but dismiss BRS in the same breath as if it’s not a potential lifesaver. That still confuses me. Passengers, on the other hand, while often not understanding the threat of icing, never fail to embrace the presence of BRS.

Agreed, from my own years of shopping. Old Ovations are generally at higher asking prices than old SR22s. I estimate maintenance to be a wash between the SR’s chute reserve ($1500/yr) and the tank reseals + retracts maintenance on the M20R. I suspect the apparent premium commanded by the Ovation is driven by low supply (especially for NDH) M20Rs on the market.

Respectfully: To say I'm familiar with Cirrus training would be understatement, but you're again dodging my point for reasons I don't grasp. First, we are all here because we love the Mooney type, and this thread is about whether Mooney needs to offer BRS to survive much longer. I'm arguing it does because BRS offers a pilot more options, particularly at night and anytime over mountains, water, dense areas, and forests. "Pull Early, Pull Often" is indeed trained into the minds of Cirrus pilots now, because stats were showing (back around 2012) that Cirrus fatal accident rate was above average and in a majority of those fatals the BRS was not being used. The training initiative since then (Pull Early, Pull Often) is credited with bringing the Cirrus type back below the fatal average. You missed or deflected my point that in 84 BRS "saves," a Cirrus has yet to catch fire or hurt someone on the ground, and we all know a fully-fueled piston single entering a neighborhood or other crowded venue at 90mph represents an enormous destructive potential which becomes uncontrollable after it makes first contact with anything. In my argument, this gives the BRS-equipped aircraft a distinct advantage. You may have missed my point, but shoppers of piston singles have not. I think that part of the discussion is in the spirit of this thread's original question.

This scenario, while entirely plausible, only serves as an immaterial distraction to this debate because it fails to distinguish a BRS-equipped plane from any other plane when it comes to risk of collateral damage on the ground once an off-field landing (or crash landing, or crash) becomes imminent. We all know that a fully fueled non-BRS plane coming down at 90mph into a densely populated area at night will make quite a scene and potential carnage. So I just can’t see this as a valid argument against dropping in fully fueled at 1700fpm straight down. And so far there have been no post-impact fires on Cirrus CAPS landing events.