MARKETING
INSIGH T
Donald Brewster
Change your viewpoint
when market demands it
Tfalls … and rises again. But contrary to the
popular nautical aphorism, it is sadly not
here is no question that the tide rises and
true that an incoming tide raises all boats. When
an unexpectedly large ebb tide rushes out and
drops a boat onto some previously unfound
ledge, the incoming tide finds the holes and fills
the wreck instead of floating it.
We are witnessing such an ebb tide in the marine industry, and many of our industry’s “boats”
have found holes punched into their bottom
lines. The current low tide has rushed out so dramatically beyond all prior low-tide marks that we
are seeing all kinds of ledges exposed and hulls
damaged on them. Those “boats” that were holed
need serious patching and pumping or they will
slip below the incoming
tidal bore. And all of us
need to learn from what we
are seeing — fixing our
charts, moving our moorings, and understanding the
forces we cannot control.
This is my seventh recession in the marine business,
proof that the tide comes
back in and that I am probably older than most who
work in this industry. I refuse to use that little maxim
that’s a required legal disclaimer in financial ads —
that past performance is no guarantee of future results — because past performance is often a very
good indicator of what can easily happen again.
Month after month, this column has carried
sound counsel from several marketing and advertising professionals. Most are smarter than me
and have put into words good and detailed advice, often quite specific, to help those who
don’t enjoy their wise recommendations on a
daily basis. Those professionals must be as surprised as I am that so few marine companies
seem to take much of that valuable advice.
Serious downturns force all of us to examine
how we do business and reconsider the advice
we should have taken. Rather than reiterate and
potentially damage their practical suggestions
through compaction, this column (a last-minute
request from my friend, Bill Sisson) is written
more about what comes next. I hope it gives
those “with holes in their bottoms” more enthusiasm for patching, more energy for bailing, and
more courage to persevere.
But given that the assigned topic was marketing and advertising, let me urge everyone to take
this moment to begin examining their attitudes
and understandings of advertising and marketing:
You’ll need to be good at this just to survive, and
you’ll want to be great at this if you want to become stronger. So study up and then put that
knowledge to work.
My crystal ball is no better than yours, so I accept that others may disagree with the following
prognostications.
First, downturns are cyclical and have occurred
with remarkable consistency … until we skipped
the last one. So perhaps we are getting the double-whammy this time and surprising those who joined
this industry only after the last recession had ended.
I firmly believe that the delay in gratification
that these days is forced on so many passionate
boaters, together with the obvious opportunity
that boating provides for leisure and recreation,
will drive a recovery in the not-too-distant future.
So there is a reason not to
give up in these dark days
of recession.
Quality-of-life considerations, ever more important in
an increasingly complex
world, point toward so many
of the desirable benefits that
boating can provide. Since
shoreline is primarily private
and the cost of waterfront
property is prohibitively expensive, boats become an
important factor in giving
water access to the huge population who will want
it. Keep in mind there is a lot more water than
shoreline, and the opportunity becomes clearer.
At industry gatherings, I hear people talk about
the high cost of boating. High compared to
what? Everything, notwithstanding gasoline
going up and down, is more expensive each
year. I remember when Chris-Crafts and Hinckleys were modest five-figure purchases, a
Porsche cost $5,000, and fine harbor-town houses cost well under $100,000.
Today, a round of golf can cost $100 (or a lot
more), requires a couple thousand dollars in equipment, and occupies one person for about four
hours per outing. It’s seasonal, usually requires
driving a car to get to it, and is nearly impossible to
share with small children. Run the same thinking
for skiing, flying or whatever: Almost everything
costs serious money, not just boating.
But how many leisure activities occupy entire
See Brewster, next page
Telling fish stories
to a group of
friends is the
perfect antidote
to a week of stock
market drops.
Donald Brewster joined the marine industry in
the 1960s, helped launch Sail magazine in 1970,
and started his own advertising agency, now
named Brewster Strategies, in 1973. He can be
reached at donald@brewsterstrategies.com
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