Marketing: Are we ok, or do we need help?

[RJP]

No matter how much we "market" scuba, in the end it can never compete with rock climbing, yoga or any of those activities you rightfully mentioned. In the end we have to realize that this will never be "recreation of the masses" like Zumba and just like marathons and triathlons attract thousands, scuba never will. It will only attract a small and dedicated community of explorer types and I suggest it is best if we keep it that way.

I never said scuba should/would "compete" with those things. I was raising them as a possible clue/insight into the psyche of today's consumer. What is it about those things that appeals to people. What does that tell us about them, and how might scuba latch onto that for a marketing edge?

As far as triathlons attracting thousands... there is far more training, work, and even cost involved in participating in even recreational triathlons. Hell, the wheels alone on my bike cost $2000.

You talk about a "dedicated community of explorer types" and "suggest it is best if we keep it that way." That's a lovely thought, but don't let the way you'd like the world to see you cloud what the world might actually want to see in scuba diving. Bear in mind, this discussion is about what the scuba industry can do to help itself grow and expand. It's not about how current customers can hold on to some irrationally romanticized opinion of themselves. Hell, I'd bet that part of the problem the scuba "industry" faces is that it misguidedly zigged down the "adventure/explorer" route when it should have zagged down the "serenely commune with nature" route.

Ironically, I would even make the case that the "serenely commune with nature" positioning would be more strategically consistent with better trained, more aware divers than swashbuckling underwater adventurers? How often do we hear people talk about "zen" of diving. Being "green" and not wasteful, and embracing minimalism (think barefoot running shoes, etc) would be consistent with minimalist HOG/GUE type diving. Whereas the underwater Indiana Jones/James Bond would be far more desirous of buckles and retractors and excess and the like.

 

[Mike Ange]

Jim, Do you mean how DEMA markets themselves as a business? I DO think DEMA does great things for the industry and if they could market the organization better - the industry would respect them more.

I thought this might be a useful discussion until I saw this post. Please go research some industry numbers over a 20 year period including interviews with sales people who have been in the industry for at least 15 years. Then come back to the discussion with a more complete insight. It will be hard for many people in the industry to take the conversation seriously if this is valid as your point of view. Get enough info to ask specific questions. One of my favorite topics is the trade show survey done in 2004 where over 90% of the respondent retailers requested the show be returned to a functional buying cycle. As a manufacturing sales manager, I considered those people my customer and the only people that mattered in the discussion. However DEMA reported that a very small majority of all industry "stakeholders" were interested in returning the show to January. My question was and is, what stakeholder group is more important than the customers attending our show? Obviously, DEMA disagreed and many manufacturers walked away from the DEMA Show Table, if not the entire organization. Some have returned and some have not. Bottom line: the primary event stirring energy, an exchange of ideas and generating commerce in the industry has become merely a social event that people attend if convenient. Of course in 99-01 I attended most of the A1 committee meetings and repeatedly asked for the results of the survey showing that our customers endorsed the change of time venue and I was certainly not alone, as far as I know we are still waiting to see those results. This is but one example symptom of the illness rotting our industry from the head down. My apologies that my examples seem dated but the illness has not changed and like many of my peers, I now find the industry association too irrelevant to bother following. I think you may have some good ideas but in my personal opinion you need a better feel for the ball field before you enter the game. Just my personal 2 cents for what they are worth. Best of Luck with the venture.

 

[Akimbo]

...In this case freediving is also less gear intensive, requires no certification, no hassle of tank fills, gear maintenance, and probably considered more macho.

Maybe. But having taken a 4½ day freediving course after nearly 50 years of all sorts of other advanced diving, it is extraordinarily… freeing. There have been huge gains in the understanding of apnea diving in the last 15 years.

The big problem with freediving is “getting over the hump” to really enjoy the experience. The knowledge exists now to make that much easier than when I learned to snorkel. A touch-n-go freedive to 60' was a huge accomplishment then. Everyone in my class did that and deeper after a few days.

I can honestly say that this freediving course was the only one I have taken since the early 1970s that was worth the spit to keep my mask clear.

 

[RJP]

. I think you may have some good ideas but in my personal opinion you need a better feel for the ball field before you enter the game. Just my personal 2 cents for what they are worth. Best of Luck with the venture.

Mike, I'd even go the other way and suggest the people best able to help guide the industry into the future from a marketing standpoint probably need to come from outside the industry. (I'm going to stop using "finger quotes" every time I say "scuba industry" but know that I continue to maintain that there is no such thing - certainly not in the customer's mind, which is the only one that matters.)

A marketing agency focused on the scuba industry is potentially doomed to have such horrible myopia as to be worth less than simply "doing the same thing, hoping for a different result." (Nevermind the fact that conflicts of interest would make it impossible to have more than one LDS client, one gear client, one liveaboard client, etc)

Scuba could use thinking from a large ad agency/marketing firm, but there's no one who speaks for the industry to hire us. I reached out to DEMA several years ago with an offer to enlist some of the best and brightest folks at my company (we own ad agencies such as McCann Erickson, Lowe+Partners, Hill-Holliday, DraftFCB, Deutch, Campbell-Ewald, The Martin Agency and others as well as PR powerhouses like Weber-Shandwick, Golin-Harris, Powell-Tate, Carmichael-Lynch-Spong and others) but I never even heard back from them. I think they were too busy talking to themselves to spare the time to talk to someone who could actually help.

 

[Julieofthesea]

I wonder if the OP is regretting opening up this hornet's nest? I see she has not been back for a couple days to post in this thread.

Sent from my DROID X2 using Tapatalk 2

I'm here! I have 4 more pages to read to get to the end. Wow you guys!

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

People's tastes and desires have changed. How have the tastes and consumption patterns of people with disposable income changed over the past 15 or so years? Hiking, rock climbing, eco-tourism, mountain biking, road cycling, running, doing triathlons, yoga, etc. Scuba never evolved to say "hey we're right there too!" This might not be the answer, but as a marketer I'll throw out the premise that scuba missed an opportunity to re-position itself as a healthy way to get outdoors and interact with nature and the environment in a uniquely engaging fashion. There's more to it than that, but the world moved on from Mike Nelson and Jacqueline Bisett a long time ago...

There's only one big box type sports chain that I know of that handles scuba gear/ training, and that's Sport Chalet based in the LA area.
But there are many other "big " chains out there like Big 5, Sports Authority, Oshman's, REI, Walmart, and many others. Every one has a golf section, a weight section, some of them have guns, all will have camping gear, archery and or bow hunting section, fly fishing, you name it. But how many have a scuba section or serious freediving section (not counting kiddy snorkelling), not too many.
Why not?
I think it's because they see it as a liability and too much of an undertaking trying to hire instructors, techs, qualified air fill people, and staff it with people that know something about diving in general. They think that a dive section would be a huge loser so they don't do it. Or maybe they never even thought about it.
In the case of Sport Chalet, they started with scuba from the get go so it's almost iconic for them to have it, plus the local culture feeds it.
However there are now Sport Chalet's in Norcal not far from me and every one of them have a scuba shop. They fill classes, fill trips, and sell a ton of gear.
So this leaves me to wonder, if Sport Chalet is doing OK with their scuba section why wouldn't other large sports superstores do well too?

If the larger sports superstores setup a dive shop in a corner do you believe that more people that walked in and saw the dive section would get into diving?

 

[RJP]

and not worry about and get pulled off task by the competition... which they have not fully defined by the competition...

Would be interested to know what people think scuba diving's competition is. Other sports/leisure things will enter into the mix, but until "a brand" knows what need their customer is trying to fulfill.. they don't really know what their competition is.

Many years ago I worked with some folks doing some branding and positioning for an iconic US company that manufactures motorcycles. Sales were flat to declining, and the company was asked "who is your competition" to which they responded with the names of various other motorcycle companies. A big discussion ensued whether the competition truly included Japanese bikes, or just American bikes, or even German or Italian bikes. Market research was conducted and it turned out that they were ALL wrong. Why? Because they assumed they sold motorcycles. But that's not what their two largest, most profitable, and potentially fastest growing customer segments were buying. It turns out, their number 1 competitor was... care to hazard a guess? (They were smart enough to not think they sold "transportation" so knew cars weren't the competition...)

Nope... not that.

Nope... not that either.

Give up?

Their number 1 competition at the time was high-end home theater installations. (This was back before HD was ubiquitous and a 50" plasma screen was bleeding edge that cost $5000 for just a dumb monitor.)

impossible you say! But when you consider what this iconic brand actually provided - in the customers' mind - it makes sense. The largest, most profitable, fastest growing customer segments at the time comprised married, professional/executive males who were seeking to reconnect with their lost youth. And what did many/most males want when they were teenage boys? A motorcycle... and a really cool stereo. Now they had enough money to blow five figures on something cool to make them feel like they did when they were a teenage boy and the whole world was right there in front of them.

So, with that instructive tale put out there... what does scuba diving promise, to whom, and who is the competition?

---------- Post added December 23rd, 2013 at 12:59 AM ----------

If the larger sports superstores setup a dive shop in a corner do you believe that more people that walked in and saw the dive section would get into diving?

I would simply type "no" but the system requires a post to be at least five characters.

 

[Trace Malinowski]

I think the biggest competition that the diving industry faces is ... the wife.

My father used to tell my mother (a college professor, so it wasn't like she was milktoast) that he was going hunting. Now, many of my students tell me that they have to ask their wives if they can do class.

Add the emasculation of the American male to the decline of the sport. I'm betting. Someone please research this topic!

 

[drrich2]

If people want to perform great acts of daring in scuba, they can do so.

No need to exclude us chubby 40 something 'males' from the hobby.

You want to put on a wet suit and drive a DPV around Seal Island, South Africa, where the great whites can mistake you for a seal? Hey, knock yourself out! If you survive we can make posters of you for dive shops. If you don't, perhaps the torn wreckage of the DPV can be used for ad.s for the product.

While some of us mosey around coral reefs in the Caribbean, looking at the pretty fish and corals.

You can still recklessly endanger yourself to impress people without excluding anybody else.

Richard.

 

[Trace Malinowski]

I'll trade you personal training for psychiatric care.

I'm 45 years-old and I don't believe that marketing to the young, and especially young men again, would exclude everyone else. I just think that marketing is being aimed at the wrong demographic.

There is nothing wrong with moseying around coral reefs. The problem for the sport is that there are lots of opportunities to go diving and to dive with a sense of adventure in most states and provinces. A larger local diving population will want to travel when winter hits and will be good for local dive centers as well as resorts. Since people now equate diving with reefs, many dive centers now have to overcome geography in addition to the other factors we've discussed in this thread.

When I take young people who have been diving in cold and warm seas on a deep fast drift dive in the St. Lawrence River on the wreck of the J.B. King in Canada at 170 feet during trimix classes they come out totally changed and hooked on diving again! The same happens when I teach cave diving.

Tech and cave diving totally got me interested in scuba again. For years, I only taught extended range freediving because scuba became a little boring. Now, I love, love, love it!!!