There are more solutions than obstacles, Nicolas Zart
In advanced air mobility (AAM), as in every other disruptive and innovation-driven sector I’ve experienced the last 30 years, companies often confuse communication, marketing, and PR. They often treat them as interchangeable. The mix-up that began in the 1980s only worsened. This can cost startups and established players precious time, money, and mostly, public credibility.
The missed opportunity to clearly define the raison d’être and establish the company’s unique culture results in confusing press releases driven by marketing haste. Eventually, press releases began to sound like feel-good sales pitches. The public becomes weary, and only a handful of investors bite into the buzz.
After two decades advising mobility ventures, I have learned one truth that applies universally: communication must come first. It builds the narrative, develops the culture, and instills the trust that makes marketing polish it for the public, and PR distributes it effectively. The question remains. If it’s so simple, why aren’t more companies doing it?
Why Communication Comes Before Marketing
Too often, businesses lead with marketing campaigns that are designed for quick visibility and lead generation, ultimately targeting investors. A well-developed communication strategy that reflects the company’s unique value is ultimately what grabs the right investors. Without first defining the company’s authentic story and purpose, the public may get excited through marketing, and a few investors may invest. However, more than likely, these investors will not be the correct ones for disruptive startups. They will not grasp the ins and outs of the industry and, more often than not, demand returns on profits (ROI) too early. We’ve seen too many times rushed products out the door before they are ready, leading to a tarnished reputation and catch-up mode for the company. After a quick ROI, some companies get left behind to pick up the pieces, and sometimes cannot.
As we mentioned above, these marketing campaigns are mostly designed to elicit public excitement to drive financial investment interest. This results in content that sounds transactional, overly polished, and “salesyish”. They become so disconnected from people’s deeper motivations, leaning heavily into hype more than reality. Eventually, this misses the intended targets, whether investors, regulators, partners, or customers.
Marketing is about promoting something to an audience. Communication is about crafting the story and message. Marketing polishes that message for public consumption. Well done together, they achieve shaping the shared understanding of what that “something” is, why it matters, and how it’s relatable to the public. Without that foundation, marketing is like a loudspeaker broadcasting an unclear message: more noise, less signal, buy more, look at me, and all the wrong messages that are now turning public attention away from sensational headlines.
Show Me The Numbers!
To back this, research such as McKinsey finds that brands with a clear, consistent narrative outperform competitors by up to 20% in long-term growth. Harvard Business Review reports that storytelling conducted in authentic, human terms always increases audience recall by up to 70% compared to facts alone. Another Deloitte & Touche research points out 83% of large-scale infrastructure initiatives fail partly due to a lack of stakeholder engagement upfront — a gap that a solid communication-first approach can close.
Communication excels by translating the motivation, reason for, and why the entity exists into stories that make people care and relate to. We can’t stress that last part more. You want to public to relate, see themselves using your products or services. Talk intelligently about it with passion. Well-crafted communication messages, polished by marketing and insightfully transmitted through public relations, help people understand why a company exists, what solution it is presenting, and a desirable outcome for society.
Communication, Marketing, and PR: A Sequence, Not a Blurb
The correct order is simple:
- Communication sets the foundation. This is your company’s common language, mission, and values, documented and understood internally, then expressed externally with authenticity.
- Marketing builds on that foundation, crafting campaigns and materials designed for engagement, acquisition, and revenue generation.
- PR then amplifies — pushing the refined message to the right outlets, influencers, and partners.
When you skip straight to marketing, you end up spending more later to “fix” a brand story that the public does not connect with. While these communication consults come in later and charge more than what it would have cost from the get-go, it makes sense to use communication in the first place to save money. This will exponentially strengthen relationships, equip marketing with clarity, and improve campaign ROI.
A survey by the Content Marketing Institute found that companies with a documented communication strategy before marketing were 60% more likely to have effective marketing outcomes than those without one.
Electric Air Mobility, LLC: AAM Strategy Powered by Experience
At Electric Air Mobility, LLC, we help international airports, OEMs, municipalities, and infrastructure stakeholders prepare for the coming AAM revolution. Backed by our podcast, The Ways We Move, our decades-old network of industry veterans and subject matter experts offers tangible insights that blend deep mobility knowledge with clear, actionable strategies.
We have sat at the stakeholder tables, walked the hangar and event floors, spoken at global summits, and advised both startups on avoiding costly missteps. From multiport terminal design to energy strategy, airspace coordination to basic infrastructure needs, that experience informs our number one piece of advice for any AAM stakeholder: get your communication strategy right before you spend on large-scale marketing or PR.
Why We Created the AAM Masterclass
Lastly, our AAM Masterclass was designed specifically to help airport executives and municipal decision-makers understand and prepare for the integration of AAM into their ecosystems. These sessions demystify technology readiness levels, airspace integration, ground infrastructure needs, funding pathways, and public perception challenges. By starting our course with research academia, it leads to practical solutions and workshops. We offer these stakeholder an understanding of how to prepare and integrate AAM into their short and long-term plans.
In the Electric Mobility and AAM Space, Trust Is Everything
Electric mobility and especially, Advanced air mobility, is not just another product category. It represents a shift in how communities think about connectivity, safety, technology, and urban planning. It is a converging ground for transportation growing into a seamless mobility experience, so dear to the younger generations. Public desirability is as critical as FAA certification. That desire is built on trusted communication, not from ad campaigns alone.
If you want your brand to be remembered and respected in this industry, start with communication, let marketing refine the delivery, and let PR amplify it. That is the sequence we live by at Electric Air Mobility, LLC, and it is how we help our clients navigate one of the most transformative aviation eras since the dawn of jet travel. If you have any questions, please reach out to us by dropping a comment right here.
We’ve had these discussions more than I can recall over the past twenty years. While most agree on the concepts, we still find the vast majority going back to marketing and PR, bypassing communications first. Perhaps this is why press releases have such a sales aspect to them and are targeted at investors after raising public excitement. Smart new AAM companies we talk to save more and efficiently spend their hard-earned funds on the right kind of communication that gets to the right public, sustaining long-term plans and attracting savvy industry investors. And therein lies the key to successful communication.