| USA. Grow Boating Initiative sees bright horizon following inaugural consumer campaign |
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| Monday, 02 October 2006 | |
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Association news: Leaders of the U.S. recreational boating industry designated to head the industry-wide Grow Boating Initiative (GBI) gathered in Chicago last month to review results from the first six months of the program’s consumer campaign. GBI posted positive benchmarks across the board since its official March unveiling to consumers, indicating forward movement is being made to achieve industry-wide growth as the long-term initiative moves into the consumer campaign’s second year. The first-ever industry-wide initiative to grow and improve boating is comprised of four strategic focus areas: increasing and protecting water access, improving boaters’ sales and service experience, certifying boats to ensure boaters get a quality product, as well as Discover Boating, the national marketing communications campaign designed to help dreamers become boat owners and current boaters to enrich their experience. “Grow Boating has yielded promising results, including impressive numbers in the marketing campaign’s first six months, and we continue to set high standards necessary to achieve growth for the boating industry,” said Thom Dammrich, president, National Marine Manufacturers Association (NMMA) and newly elected president of Grow Boating, Inc. “We measure the success of this initiative in a variety of areas to determine its impact on the non-boating population and we’re encouraged by the direction the initiative, and industry, are headed in the next few years.” Raising Consumer Awareness In the six months since the marketing communications campaign launched, significant strides have been made in establishing overall awareness for Discover Boating, led by the comprehensive print, online and broadcast advertising campaign. As part of the initial campaign push, more than 3,000 television spots aired, averaging 300 commercials per week. Nearly $1 million in additional coverage was garnered through added-value elements such as custom-made vignettes, sponsorships and special projects, significantly extending the reach of the campaign. A notable campaign highlight was Discover Boating online banner advertisement appearances on CBS Sportsline’s live streaming video web casts of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. The live tournament web casts drew record viewers and delivered nearly seven times more online reach than anticipated. A sampling of target consumers, conducted by Russell Research prior to March, found 1 in 20 had heard of Discover Boating. Following first year advertising efforts, consumer awareness for Discover Boating had risen to 1 in 4. Consumers responded favorably to the campaign, with print ads reaching 68 percent likeability and television spots receiving 76 percent likeability; ad likeability standards suggest a likeability rating of more than 60 percent could produce a change in consumer behavior. National advertising efforts were bolstered by public relations outreach on the national, regional and local levels, including placements in top media outlets such as Fox & Friends national morning show, CNBC, The New York Times, Associated Press, Popular Mechanics and Reuters to build awareness for the boating lifestyle and Discover Boating brand. Media coverage on behalf of GBI was garnered in general consumer, consumer boating and industry trade outlets, with focus ranging from business to lifestyle feature stories. Industry communication efforts sought to keep manufacturers, dealers and members of the media informed on the development and direction of GBI. The 1.5 billion advertising media impressions and 163 million public relations media impressions led the way in boosting the initiative’s profile. “Our first six months of advertising and public relations efforts were effective in raising Discover Boating awareness levels and directing consumers to DiscoverBoating.com as part of our overall Grow Boating timeline,” said Carl Blackwell, NMMA’s vice president of marketing and communications. “To further establish Discover Boating nationally, we will continue to focus our efforts on getting consumers to think positively about boating and driving visitors to DiscoverBoating.com to help those dreamers become boaters.” Marketing communications efforts spurred a surge in traffic to the re-designed DiscoverBoating.com Web site over the previous year’s monthly totals, highlighted by a peak increase of 537 percent in June 2006. As of the 2006 fiscal year close on September 30, DiscoverBoating.com saw a 250 percent increase over the previous year’s site visits. The Web site drew more than 1.6 million visits from March through September 2006, with May and June seeing peak traffic. Site traffic during those months found DiscoverBoating.com drew not only prospective boaters, but a significant number of current boaters using the site for tips and destinations. Top referring sites to DiscoverBoating.com were Google, Yahoo!, CNN.com, and Weather.com. Connecting with Prospective Boaters While in the midst of a decade-long period of relatively flat sales, boat purchase interest research conducted as part of the Discover Boating Pre/Post Awareness Study by Russell Research, found the campaign successful at inviting new people to consider boating. Fewer people indicated they had no interest in ever owning a boat. In fact, there was a six percent increase in those shopping for a boat. Research has found the boat buying process takes, on average, three years from the time a prospective buyer first considers the possibility through the actual purchase. While still in the early stages of being able to measure GBI’s impact on boat sales, goals were achieved in the overall GBI strategic plan, including the establishment of a growing database of prospective boaters and the addition of a growing number of interested individuals to the pipeline. GBI has distributed nearly 41,000 “Get Started in Boating” DVDs to prospective boaters, mostly following requests from the interested party on DiscoverBoating.com. The current database includes more than 50,000 prospects, including 13,000 individuals who have requested direct dealer/manufacturer contact. In addition, nearly 159,000 direct manufacturer Web site referrals were sent from DiscoverBoating.com. GBI continues to demonstrate its commitment to helping prospective boaters navigate through the boat buying process to become actual boaters. Enhancing the Boating Experience Since March, the Marine Industry Dealership Certification program has gained momentum, with more than 360 dealerships enrolled, 100 of which have completed the process and earned the official “Marine Industry Certified” designation. As part of GBI, dealer certification was designed to provide a matrix of best practices at the dealer level to help raise the bar on interaction between marine product retailers and the consumer to ultimately improve the customer experience with boating. Product certification efforts led to the increase in total NMMA Certified boat builders to 170 in 2006, with 172 additional boat builders on their way to NMMA Certification with inspections completed or scheduled in 2006. “We are impressed with the dealerships and boat builders who have achieved the ‘Certified’ distinction, it’s a commitment to improving the boating industry and they should be proud of this accomplishment,” noted Dammrich. “Improving the sales and service experience at the dealer level, as well as improving product quality, are major elements of the Grow Boating Initiative and vital to our industry’s ongoing efforts to increase participation in boating.” Efforts to increase and protect water access areas continue to move forward with the execution of several studies to measure the economic impact of marinas, as well regional trends in marinas and water access. Dylan Jones, Water Access Counsel, was hired to lead the Water Access Protection portion of GBI, including the Water Access Committee Focus Teams. Water access efforts are centered on the following: permitting, policy reform, land use issues (mixing access and development), compiling data and outreach efforts to turn the tide on access issues. Grow Boating Initiative postes strong results in first year Fact sheet: Year One Consumer Campaign Program Highlights Since March, the Grow Boating Initiative (GBI) has produced positive results on behalf of the industry towards the overall goal of building interest and participation in boating. The first-ever industry-wide initiative to grow and improve boating is comprised of four strategic focus areas: increasing and protecting water access, improving boaters’ sales and service experience, certifying boats to ensure boaters get a quality product, as well as Discover Boating, the national marketing communications campaign designed to get more people interested in boating and current boaters to enrich their experience. GBI’s overall key measures for 2006 - 2008 and progress to date are: Increase participation from a baseline 71.3 million participants in the U.S. in 2005. Encourage boat purchases: Within the target audience, decrease the percentage of individuals with no interest in purchasing a boat (reduced from 42% to 36% in 2006) Interest in purchasing a boat (held at 56% in 2006) Intent to purchase a boat (jumped from 2% to 8% in 2006) GBI’s first year highlights include: Discover Boating Campaign Awareness The campaign’s 1.5 billion advertising impressions resonated strongly with the target audience: Likeability of the television ads was 76%, while the print ads were rated at 68%. A measure of more than 60% suggests a change in behavior and increase in sales participation. Discover Boating brand recall increased from 1 in 20 consumers to 1 in 4 consumers during the campaign.1 Advertising Reach More than 3,000 television commercials aired, for an average of more than 300 per week. More than 200 million impressions were generated through magazine advertising, which focused on news, sports, active/outdoor, hands-on, men’s interest, and parenting titles. The 37 total insertions reached 41% of adults ages 25-49. Online advertising produced 250 million impressions. More than 60,000 DiscoverBoating.com visits came from banner ad click-throughs. Discover Boating’s online advertising during the inaugural live streaming Web cast of “NCAA March Madness on Demand” on CBSSportsline.com reached an audience of 1.3 million, 6.5 times the expected audience reach. This record-breaking live streaming event achieved the largest viewing web audience in history. Nearly 3/4 of overall target audience was reached three or more times during the campaign. Public Relations Impressions Traditional and innovative public relations programs helped raise the campaign profile: PR efforts garnered more than 163 million consumer media impressions, nearly doubling the previous year’s total of 82 million. Highlights of the consumer PR efforts included national coverage on Fox & Friends Morning Show, CNBC, The New York Times, Popular Mechanics, Associated Press, and Reuters. Local and regional coverage touched nearly every major market, highlighted by unique boating programs and events in markets such as New York, Miami, San Francisco and Milwaukee. National business media coverage geared towards enhancing the overall image of the boating industry produced more than 80 million media impressions. Web Site Traffic The revamped DiscoverBoating.com Web site saw a triple-digit increase in traffic, establishing a solid benchmark for future years of the campaign: The site attracted 1.6 million visits from March through September 2006, with triple-digit percentage increases over the previous year’s monthly traffic. In this time period, there were more than one million unique visits to DiscoverBoating.com who spent an average of eight to nine minutes on the site. During the ad campaign, traffic visits to DiscoverBoating.com peaked in June with 374,129 visitors to the site that month alone. Web traffic increased 250% for fiscal year 2006. Boater Prospects and Leads As research has shown the boat buying process takes an average of three years, GBI’s first year focused on building a base of potential boaters with the goal of education to help advance them through the purchase cycle. Here are first-year highlights: Fulfilled nearly 41,000 requests for free “Get Started in Boating” DVDs. Generated 50,100 prospects, more than 13,300 of which are considered hot leads. Linked over 159,000 visitors to DiscoverBoating.com directly to participating manufacturer websites. Certification Marine Industry Dealership Certification Designed to highlight dealerships with a demonstrated commitment to providing a quality sales and service experience for the consumer: Achieved 100 dealerships Certified, with nearly 200 expected to receive official Certified status by the end of 2006. More than 360 dealerships have enrolled in the program. More than 300 dealerships have completed Certification workshops, with eight additional launch workshops scheduled for Fall 2006. Certified Boat and Yacht Manufacturers A record number of boat manufacturers became NMMA Certified, complying with industry safety guidelines, construction standards and federal regulations. In order to be NMMA Certified, boats undergo third-party inspection to ensure all standards are met. 2006 results include: 170 boat builders received NMMA Certified status. More than 170 additional boat manufacturers were inspected or are scheduled for inspection this fall as they seek NMMA Certification. Water Access Upholding and promoting access to waterways is necessary to ensure boaters have ample opportunities to enjoy boating. GBI’s water access efforts in 2006 included: Hired a full-time Water Access Counsel and established focus teams to meet monthly to address strategic goals on the subjects of: Influencing local decision making to preserve and grow boating access. mproving the policy, permitting and regulatory environment. A more efficient use of waterfront space and technology. Creating opportunities through government partnerships to access underutilized public land Building dynamic and flexible communication network among stakeholders. Complete the research to make to case for the economic benefits of marinas and boating access to federal, state and local planners. |
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