A December 18, 2008 press release from Bonnier Corporation in Winter Park, Florida announces another move in the trend of consolidation and reduction in the publication of specialty magazines dedicated to scuba diving. The most well known of the current scuba publications, Scuba Diving Magazine, has recently been acquired by this Florida based publishing company.  Scuba Diving Magazine is the oldest surviving, and most well-known, monthly magazine publication in the scuba industry, and has lately become best known for scuba travel advertising. Bonnier Corporation, a publishing company that specializes in enthusiast publications, is home to some of the most well-known names in sports publications. Their brands include those dedicated to boating and yachting, skiing, snow sports, and a variety of outdoor pursuits. They are most well-known for specific, widely circulated brands like Popular Science and Field and Stream. Bonnier recently acquired Sports Diver magazine.  They are also the publishers of the PADI Undersea Journal, a trade publication for PADI dive instructors and diving professionals.  With the addition of  the Scuba Diving brand , they will clearly be the leader in scuba diving publications and will have a corner on the scuba magazine advertising market.   The addition of the Scuba Diving brand also gives them the popular online presence at scubadiving.com, an online portal very popular with beginning scuba divers.  The text of the Bonnier press release announcing this acquisition is provided below.

New York, NY – Bonnier Corporation, publisher of Sport Diver, today announced the purchase of Scuba Diving magazine from F+W Media Inc. The acquisition positions Bonnier as the dominant media company in the dive industry and expands its presence as the pre-eminent enthusiast sports publisher in the world.

The deal includes a significant new online presence for Bonnier. ScubaDiving.com hosts one of the largest online communities in the dive industry and will complement Sport Diver’s ongoing digital initiatives.

“Scuba Diving is a perfect strategic fit for us,” says Bonnier Corp. CEO Terry Snow. “We serve the enthusiast market better than anyone in the business, so adding Scuba Diving to our existing Sport Diver title will only enhance our relationship with the dive industry and its passionate audience.”

“F+W Media has made a strategic shift from traditional print publisher to integrated media company,” said David Nussbaum, Chairman & CEO of F+W Media. “Our future success will grow from our community model and by giving full focus to our core categories – those with the most opportunity for growth and profit potential through events, competitions, books, magazines and online. Only after a considerable portfolio review did we determine to exit the scuba diving marketplace. We are pleased to be able to place the title with Bonnier, a better strategic fit for the magazine and the category overall.”

“Scuba Diving is a strong and respected brand,” says Dave Freygang, Vice President of Publishing for Bonnier’s Enthusiast Division. “We understand that the lifeblood of the diving industry is bringing in and retaining divers. We will work with our marketing and strategic partners to do just that and, at the same time, offer the industry the best return on investment with the most experienced editorial and sales staffs in the business.”

Scuba Diving and Sport Diver will now be aligned with The Undersea Journal, a publication Bonnier produces for PADI, the sport’s largest certification agency, creating the new Bonnier Dive Group, which will fall under the Enthusiast Group.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Phil Ellis
Buy Discount Scuba Gear at DiveSports.com

Anything that gets new people, young people, any people interested in scuba diving and the ocean is good. I am constantly searching the news for interesting information to share with my friends who express an interest in our sport and our oceans. I was surfing around on some of my favorite news sites this morning and saw a really cool picture taken at a new restaurant in Guatemala City, Guatemala. It seems that this Latin American restaurant owner has found a way to integrate a dining experience with the public’s keen interest in beautiful fish and the ocean. With a little research, I came up with this article that provides a little more detail on the successful business venture. The International Business Times website provides the following information in an article they published on December 10, 2008.

GUATEMALA CITY - The only restaurant-aquarium in Latin America, where diners share a table with species like the moray eel and the zebra shark, has fast become a craze in the Guatemalan capital.

During its opening last Wednesday, around 4,600 customers showed up at the restaurant established in a modern shopping mall on the southeast side of the capital, the general manager of Grupo Nais, Jose Garces, said, adding that he had expected around 3,000.

The son of a Cuban father who emigrated to Guatemala in 1961, and the owner since 1974 of the Nais restaurant chain, Garces said that the Nais-Aquarium has turned into “a real craze.”

Visitors to the mall find long lines of customers waiting to get into the restaurant, not only to please their palates, but also to see the nearly 600 fish of at least 38 exotic species on view.

Moray eels, zebra sharks, moon jellyfish and common guitarfish are among the many underwater attractions.

“Customers wait up to three hours to get in, because the place is already too small for the demand,” Garces said, explaining that the restaurant measures 832 sq. meters (8,943 sq. feet), which includes 15 aquariums and only 98 tables.

Most of the species are in the 39-meter (128-foot)-long mobile aquarium, including two grey sharks that are now each a meter (more than 3 feet) long and are the main attractions.

Garces said that he wants to have five sharks of this species and five more hammerhead sharks, which are brownish-grey in color and can measure up to 1.5 meters (almost 5 feet), as well as some manta rays.

The different species adorning the aquariums were imported from Caribbean countries, Australia, Brazil and the United States, with some fish worth as much as $400. But there are also many from Guatemala, Garces said.

Some 700 Guatemalan workers and 400 for eigners took part in the construction of the building that took 10 months, and 72 of them built the Nais-Aquarium and its reefs made of epoxy resin, he said.

The restaurant’s 160 employees are insufficient to take care of all the customers, many of whom come with their children who leave the display wide-eyed with amazement.

One child told Efe, after entering a bubble to observe the exotic species up close, that never in his life had he seen anything “so pretty” and that what he liked most were the sharks.

From their tables customers have a view of the restaurant’s biggest aquarium, which is fitted with 40 television screens inside of it and a video system to further entertain the visitors.

“You can hear a song by Luis Miguel or see a video by Ricky Martin,” Garces said by way of an example, adding that the restaurant is equipped with a unique system of lights brought from the United States and Belgium.

The investment cost in the millions but was “worth it,” the entrepreneur said during a tour of the establishment, which will have a cost of $45,000 per month just for maintenance of the aquariums.

The Nais-Aquarium has become an ecological center of entertainment and education and has a hospital for marine species, quarantine tanks, a biology lab, a center for nutritional support and an impressive lighting system designed to maintain a natural habitat for the fish.

Visitors take part in the underwater world through various shows put on by divers when it comes time to feed the fish.

The installation of the Nais-Aquarium was authorized by the National Council of Protected Areas and has the backing of environmental institutions of worldwide prestige such as the Ocean Science Foundation and the University of Florida’s Tropical Aquaculture Laboratory.

Garces said that the opening of the Nais Aquarium in Guatemala will be followed by the construction of similar ones in Costa Rica and Honduras in 2009, in Panama in 2010, and in Mexico in 2011.

The innovative entrepreneur, who says he is an “aquarium lover,” expects to receive some 500,000 diners during 2009.

Taken from International Business Times

Phil Ellis

No Food, But We Teach  Scuba Diving at Dive Sports!

As scuba divers, we have become accustomed to signing liability waivers anytime we want to take a dive class, join a group dive trip, board a dive charter vessel, or participate in any other type of recreational scuba diving activity.  In fact, liability waivers are so common, few divers even question them.  To most, it is common sense that adults who wish to participate in adventurous activities must take responsibility for what happens in those pursuits.  However, the question is not so clear when minors are involved.

It is customary to have a parent or guardian sign waiver documents on behalf of their minor children when the minor plans to participate in dive training and dive travel.  In most states, scuba and adventure sports providers cannot ask the minor to sign; they are not of sufficient age to engage in contracts.  All that is available to the operator is a signature from a well informed parent or guardian.  However, this is an area of great concern for operators, because the legal status of such signatures is not well tested in most states.   The courts in the State of Florida appear to have ruled on exactly this issue.  The following is taken from a December 12, 2008 article in the HeraldTribune.com.

TALLAHASSEE - Parents cannot waive liability on behalf of their children by signing releases before the youngsters participate in motor sports and other hazardous activities, the Florida Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

The 4-1 ruling in the death of a 14-year-old boy while riding an all-terrain vehicle could have broad implications for businesses that offer such activities as go-cart and motocross racing, bungee jumping, horseback riding, parasailing and scuba diving.

“Florida’s children and parents need not worry, after today’s decision, that careless commercial operators may be immunized from their carelessness by the presence of an exculpatory clause in a ticket for admission,” Justice Harry Lee Anstead wrote in a concurring opinion.

The decision cleared the way for a lawsuit against the owners and manager of Thunder Cross Motor Sports Park in Okeechobee County, where Christopher Jones died after attempting a jump. He lost control and was ejected from the vehicle. It then landed on top of him. He got up and began walking away, but then collapsed and died.

A trial judge cited a waiver signed by Christopher’s father in dismissing the lawsuit. An appellate court disagreed and reinstated the suit. The high court approved that decision.

“Up to now, the activity providers were able to use children’s desire to participate as a way to force parents to give them immunity,” said Brad Rockenbach, a lawyer for Christopher’s estate. “You do it because kids want to go.”

Rockenbach said the ruling also should serve as an incentive for operators to make their activities safer.

Whether the decision also affects noncommercial endeavors such as community or school-based activities may require further litigation.

Anstead wrote that he wanted “to emphasize that our holding is narrowly directed at those commercial operators who wrongfully and negligently cause injury.”

Chief Justice Peggy Quince, though, wrote in a footnote to the main opinion that it “should not be read as limiting our reasoning only to … commercial activity.”

“The majority opinion creates many questions and provides few answers,” Justice Charles Wells wrote in dissent.

Wells agreed it is a good idea to limit parental pre-injury releases. But he wrote that such limits should be imposed by the Legislature, not the courts. He added that it is “fundamentally unfair now to declare a new public policy and then apply it to the defendants in this case.”

But the majority concluded it is more unfair for an activity provider to escape liability and shift the cost of treating and caring for an injured child to the parents or the public.

“Therefore, when a parent decides to execute a pre-injury release on behalf of a minor child, the parent is not protecting the welfare of the child, but is instead protecting the interests of the activity provider,” Quince wrote. “Business owners owe their patrons a duty of reasonable care.”

The Supreme Court’s two newest justices, Charles Canady and Ricky Polston, did not participate in the case.

At Dive Sports, we have always recognized that this is uncharted territory in the State of Alabama.  We follow our provider rules and those of our training agency with regard to liability waivers.  However, we have never been under the assumption that liability waivers, signed by a parent on behalf of a minor,  would withstand a legal challenge if the MINOR chooses to take legal action as a result of an accident.  We will follow further developments on this Florida court ruling and similar rulings in other states.  This is an issue that could substantially affect the participation of children in adventure sports.

Phil Ellis

DiveSports.com - Your Source for Real Deals on Scuba Diving Gear

I was just bumping around the internet, looking at my favorite news sites, when I saw an interesting article written by Reuters reporter Maggie Fox and reported on Yahoo! News.  It seems that larger than normal jellyfish blooms are ruining lots of vacations and causing pain and discomfort for swimmers worldwide.  The text from Yahoo! News follows.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Huge swarms of stinging jellyfish and similar slimy animals are ruining beaches in Hawaii, the Gulf of Mexico, the Mediterranean, Australia and elsewhere, U.S. researchers reported on Friday.

The report says 150 million people are exposed to jellyfish globally every year, with 500,000 people stung in the Chesapeake Bay, off the U.S. Atlantic Coast, alone.

Another 200,000 are stung every year in Florida, and 10,000 are stung in Australia by the deadly Portuguese man-of-war, according to the report, a broad review of jellyfish research.

The report, available on the Internet at http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/jellyfish/index.jsp, says the Black Sea’s fishing and tourism industries have lost $350 million because of a proliferation of comb jelly fish.

The report says more than 1,000 fist-sized comb jellies can be found in a cubic yard (meter) of Black Sea water during a bloom.

They eat the eggs of fish and compete with them for food, wiping out the livelihoods of fishermen, according to the report.

And it says a third of the total weight of all life in California’s Monterey Bay is made up of jellyfish.

Human activities that could be making things nice for jellyfish include pollution, climate change, introductions of non-native species, overfishing and building artificial structures such as oil and gas rigs.

Creatures called salps cover up to 38,600 square miles (100,000 sq km) of the North Atlantic New York Bight, but researchers quoted in the report said this one may be a natural cycle. in a regular phenomenon called the

“There is clear, clean evidence that certain types of human-caused environmental stresses are triggering jellyfish swarms in some locations,” William Hamner of the University of California Los Angeles says in the report.

These include pollution-induced “dead zones”, higher water temperatures and the spread of alien jellyfish species by shipping.

Read Entire Article on Yahoo! News - Jellyfish Explosion

Jellyfish stings are certainly painful.  Over the past 5 years, we have seen a gigantic growth in the sales of various products to prevent jellyfish stings or to mitigate the pain and misery once they occur.  Products such as Safe Sea Jellyfish Protectant suntan lotion, Mitigator Jelly Fish Extreme Scrub, and Sting Zapper first aid medication have been very popular products on our website.  Apparently, the news is out and it appears to be getting worse.  Jellyfish stings hurt!

Phil Ellis

Protect Yourself from Jellyfish with DiveSports.com

Continuation of My Discussion on Over-Reaching MAP Price Policies

Many scuba manufacturers seem set on the concept of “creating a level playing field” for all dealers…local scuba stores and internet retailers alike. I have honestly never understood what this means, given that I can’t think of any other area of life where the playing field is level.

Scuba industry MAP price policies are really an attempt to buffer the difference between the traditional scuba store and the newer business models used by internet retailers. The major scuba companies seem to be trying to achieve a situation where the same price exists for a given product, regardless of the geographic location of the market, regardless of the economic strength of the market area, and regardless of the business model of the retailer offering the product. Most, fearing direct movement toward minimum retail price policies, attempt to do this through writing VERY restrictive MAP price policies that actually achieve the same thing. I would argue that “the same price” is confusing to consumers, who expect to see the natural variation in prices, and absent that variation, expect that something is rigged. I would argue that creating “the same price” for all retailers would be anything but level. In fact, this is a pricing concept that guarantees that the playing field is NOT level. In the internet scuba retail business (and this is EXACTLY what this is all about), the concept of “the same price” heavily favors the larger, established internet retailers. They already have the most traffic, they already have the highest customer count, they already have the marketing advantage. For a smaller internet retailer, this level playing field completely eliminates the ability to grow market share, by using the important motivator of price to obtain new customers. Many smaller internet retailers need to go head to head with the larger retailers, on price, in order to gain some market share.

The major scuba companies have an unusual group of supporters in the establishment of these very restrictive MAP policies….the largest scuba internet retailers. I personally KNOW that some of the large retailers want complete price parity; they want “the same price”. It protects their margins, but mostly, it prevents any “upstarts” from encroaching on their market, through lower prices driven by leaner operations and a willingness to surrender profit margin for website traffic and business growth. In other words, it prevents new internet retailers from gaining market share EXACTLY the same way the big guys did it in the beginning….with price competition. Over-reaching MAP price policies that insist upon “the same price”, and complete elimination of all discounts, simply give a never-ending, manufacturer-protected franchise to the biggest of the big scuba internet retailers.

I realize that many manufacturers, from a variety of industries, have MAP price policies. Scuba manufacturers certainly have the right to do the same. However, when the policies are written with rules and restrictions that are so over-reaching that they extend beyond price advertising, and attempt to attain “the same price” everywhere, then that is going too far. In our industry, already saddled with many systemic problems with few solutions, we don’t benefit when structures are put in place that prevent dealer to dealer competition in all areas, including price.

Phil Ellis

Discount Scuba Gear and Equipment at DiveSports.com

The scuba industry has long been ruled by Minimum Advertised Price (MAP) policies. These programs, included by reference in almost all scuba industry dealership agreements, establish the lowest price a retailer may use when advertising a scuba product. Almost all such policies state two primary objectives; 1) to “level the playing field” so that all scuba retailers (local dive stores, primarily) are able to maintain a high profit margin, and 2) to “protect the value” of the brand being controlled. While I have VERY strong opinions of these objectives, I will not argue the ability of these policies to achieve these objectives. I will discuss what happens when a company attempts to go beyond the advertised price, beyond the posted price of the product, and moves to establish an “over-reaching” MAP policy.

In early January, a “price war”, of sorts, broke out among several of the largest scuba Internet retailers. This little “price spat” manifested itself as these merchants offered “whole order discounting” on any order placed in their site, in an attempt to spur website traffic in a slow time of the year. If the site contained scuba products already priced at the MAP price, then the whole order discounts provided by the combatants would result in the resell of the products below the manufacturer’s minimum advertising price.

This war resulted in a great deal of negotiation and discussion among several of the scuba manufacturers and these merchants that were offering whole order discounts. These negotiations, and the discussions involved, were only among the companies and the people causing the infractions; other retailers had no way to know of the discussions and were not involved in any of the “agreements” made as a result. After all agreed to play nice, the whole order discounts were “officially” ended and all was well in the scuba industry. Then, in steps DiveSports.com.

While this little retailer price spat was taking place, we were busy developing the new Divesports.com website. All along, we had planned to offer some purchase incentives as our customers moved from our old site to the new one. One such promotion was to provide a free $10 Gift Card with orders of $100 or more. Another provided other discounts that could be achieved by using the discount code capability of our new website platform. Remember, we WERE NOT INVOLVED in this first little dust-up about whole order discounts, but boy did we hear the news when we launched our new site with the purchase incentives. In fact, one of my early posts on this blog, titled Scuba Industry Price Controls dealt with a little of the blow-back we got from manufacturers and some of our competitors.

We are now several weeks past this initial confrontation about pricing. We are now starting to see manufacturers that are revising their policies to prohibit ANY DISCOUNTS on their products that would bring them below the MAP price. No “club” discounts, no “member” discounts, no “frequent customer” discounts, no “free gift cards” with purchases, no “chat board” discounts…in fact, not advertised discounts at all! While this seems to be an attempt to “level the playing field” for retailers, I personally think the new policies border on RETAIL PRICE CONTROL, a type of control that most consumers reject and that most manufacturers have worked hard to keep at arms length. The text of these new policies we are now seeing create a very complicated set of business rules, rules which are wide open for misunderstanding, and result in policies that will hurt the ability of local and on-line retailers to increase traffic, build business, and provide value to consumers.

Over-reaching MAP policies quickly morph into Retail Price Controls. This is a bad thing for our industry and it is terrible for consumers. Over-reaching MAP policies assume that all retailers WANT and NEED a level playing field. Some of us would prefer to slug it out in the marketplace with competitors. Over-reaching MAP policies interrupt the natural negotiation that occurs when a customer comes to the cash register…which is exactly what our shopping cart includes…a cash register. Over-reaching MAP policies require too much interpretation by the merchant, thereby complicating the business of doing business. Over-reaching MAP policies cause distrust among scuba consumers, who see the exact same price everywhere they go….. something that this industry simply cannot afford, and something we have worked hard to combat.

Over the next few weeks, I am going to be saying more about my personal and business feelings about MAP policies that attempt to encumber the operation of my business. Some of the things I intend to say will not go down like a smooth, sweet pill. They will, however, be the truth of my opinion on the importance of this subject for scuba diving equipment retailers and local scuba stores. Stay tuned for more information about over-reaching minimum advertised price policies in the scuba diving industry.

Phil Ellis

www.divesports.com

I am amazed that we continue to hear dishonest and misleading statements designed to scare scuba divers away from purchasing scuba gear from Internet resellers.  This morning, I was reading one of my favorite scuba chat boards and ran across a link listed in one of the user’s signature lines.  Being curious, I followed the link and found the following quote from one of the pages on the target site.

SHOULD I BUY GEAR OVER THE INTERNET TO SAVE A LITTLE MONEY?

No… Many Internet gear retailers purchase the left over inventory of dive shops that have financially failed. In some cases the equipment has been on the shelf deteriorating for years. Most equipment designs don’t change for 5-7 years. Internet gear retailers are not recognized by diving equipment manufacturers. Gear purchased over the Internet is not covered by the manufacturers lifetime warranty. Many dive shops will not repair equipment purchased on the Internet. No dive shop will do warranty work on equipment purchased on the Internet. The equipment you use while diving provides life support. Why risk injury to save a few dollars.

Quote Taken From http://www.midwestscubadiving.com/Gear.aspx

I continue to be amazed at what some scuba stores, organizations, and individuals will claim as fact, without any evidence that it is true.  First, almost all of the scuba Internet retail sites, including DiveSports.com, are fully authorized dealers for the brands we resale.  Far from being discouraged by our brand manufacturers, most of us are considered very loyal and important customers.

While “getting left over inventory from stores that have financially failed” might have been used on occasion by a few Internet resellers, this would be a very poor merchandise procurement plan.  Customers come to the Internet to get the best and the latest gear available, stuff that is often not available at a small, local scuba store.  Furthermore, while there are a lot of scuba store failures, that particular method of merchandise procurement would NEVER supply the needs of an active and robust Internet reseller.

The quote states that “no dive shop will do warranty work on equipment purchased on the Internet”.  I think this is a pretty broad and greatly inaccurate statement.  If equipment is purchased from an auhtorized dealer, no matter where that is, I would think another dealer should very willingly do service work.  If equipment is purchased on the Internet from an Authorized Dealer, what grounds would another dealer have for refusing service?  Since they get considerable revenue from they service, why would they refuse in the first place?

This quote is simply wrong and makes no sense.  The largest majority of internet resellers are fully factory authorized dealers and we trade on the Internet mostly under the same name as our brick and mortar stores.  There is no subterfuge going on here.  We aren’t pulling one over on our suppliers.  We are honest retailers who use multiple ways to distribute our merchandise.

If you are going to try to scare your customers into buying from you or someone in your cartel, at least use the truth.  Lies and misstatements like those found in this quote only harm the writer and the industry.

Phil Ellis

Fully Factory Authorized Discount Scuba Gear

Yesterday, I made a post on this blog about the exciting efforts of Team Scuba for the upcoming NASCAR Bush East season.  In that post, I credited DEMA as being a supporter of this effort.  Several communications from people involved with Team Scuba have voiced the opposite.  Not only does DEMA not financially support the Team Scuba NASCAR effort, they are apparently hostile to the effort.

Ray Black Sr. is the owner of Commercial Diving Academy in Jacksonville, Florida.  He is also team owner of Team Scuba.  Jed Livingstone is Vice President of NAUI, one of the major sponsors of Team Scuba.  From reports I have been able to get today, and from comments from these involved individuals, it appears that DEMA was offered an opportunity to participate in this effort.  They refused.  In fact,  they demonstrated some level of hostility by CHARGING Team Scuba for the right to exhibit the race car at the recent DEMA show in Orlando, Florida.  I am simply forced to ask myself why. 

The scuba diving industry grew up in California.  Most of the major scuba manufacturing companies are located in California.  The largest scuba certification agency in the world, PADI, is headquartered in California.  Some Californians view NASCAR as simply a “southern” thing.  They fail to realize that this sport is the fastest growing spectator sport in the United States.  They don’t see that NASCAR fans are among the most brand loyal fans of any sport, that the typical NASCAR fan has a family income considerably larger than the average income in the United States, and that NASCAR fans recognize the drivers as being real athletes.  A quote from the James Madison University Center for Sports Sponsorship says it perfectly.

Maybe a simple lack of knowledge about the marketing power of NASCAR is the reason that DEMA would not offer support to Team Scuba.  Maybe DEMA is spending all of their available funds on the Be a Diver campaign.  Regardless of the reason, we hope it will change. 

I have no doubt that a successful season for Team Scuba will likely do nothing to impact the number of new scuba diver certifications in California; but there is scuba diving far east of California.  Those of us in the south eastern part of the United States would LOVE to have the NASCAR crowd in our scuba stores.  We know they love their sport, they believe their sponsors, and they support the brands and organizations that sponsor NASCAR.  Even a moderately successful season for Team Scuba will make a gigantic difference to scuba diving east of California.

I would like to suggest that DEMA change their attitude toward the NASCAR effort being advanced by Team Scuba.  This is a team with a good plan, a great young diver, and they are participating in a rapidly growing part of automobile racing, the NASCAR Bush East series.  Maybe DEMA could begin to shift their support by returning any money Team Scuba paid to DEMA for the rights to display at the show.   Let Team Scuba spend it putting this fast kid and his fast car in front of a brand new group of potential divers.   After all, what THEY are doing will actually improve the economic picture for the DEMA members.

I am sorry for mistakenly giving DEMA credit when credit was not deserved.  I hope that DEMA, and all of the other large potential industry sponsors, will realize that what we need in the scuba diving industry is more scuba divers…..even if they also happen to love NASCAR racing.

Phil Ellis

Note to Ray:  Bring your demonstration car to my store in Alabama and I will show you a crowd of people that love scuba diving and NASCAR.

You Can Race to Discount Scuba Gear at Dive Sports

As I have mentioned in previous posts on this blog, it appears that the money interests in this sport of scuba diving have finally determined that we need to do something different to stimulate interest in scuba diving.  Yesterday, I blogged about the DEMA Be a Diver campaign and my hopes that this will be a successful effort.  Today, I want to talk about another effort supported by DEMA to achieve this same objective.

Diver Down Motor Sports, with the support of DEMA and a number of principal manufacturers and other industry stakeholders, will field a scuba diving themed race car in the increasingly popular NASCAR Bush East Grand National series.  Led by young driver Ray Black, Jr., Team Scuba will bring scuba diving to the millions of fans of NASCAR racing.  NASCAR has demonstrated the ability to provide clean, effective sponsorship opportunities to some of the largest corporations and most prominent organizations in the country.  The brand loyalty and product recognition among NASCAR fans is among the highest for any advertising or promotional opportunity, and the number of potential consumers reached by a winning NASCAR team is simply mind-boggling.

While the connection between scuba diving and NASCAR racing may seem a little strange at first glance, this race car sponsorship idea may well make some sense.  Ray Black Jr. came onto the stock car racing scene with an amazing performance right out of the gate.  Even at his young age, he has apparently demonstrated all of the qualities necessary for a successful race car driving career.  The follow except was taken from the Team Scuba website:

 With talent and determination, 16-year-old Ray Black Jr. took the FMCRA Junior All Star series by storm. At the age of 15 he not only finished in the top five in every race, bit collected seven wins. The team secured the Championship for the FMCRA Junior All Stars, making him, FMCRA’s “Rookie of the Year for 2006.” Ray Black Jr. and Diver Down Motorsports’ “Team Scuba’ have built a reputation of solid and honest racing style.

If Team Scuba and Ray are able to lead only one or two races in the Bush East series next year, the television exposure on cable channels that exactly target the diving demographic will be invaluable.  Scuba diving should realize the same benefits seen by the largest corporations in the country through NASCAR sponsorship.

This industry sponsorship of a NASCAR team is exactly the out-of-the-box thinking that is essential to the growth of this industry and this sport.   I know I will be personally taking a little more interest in Bush racing next year and everyone involved in the industry, either consumer or supplier, should wish Ray Black, Jr and Team Scuba good luck.

Phil Ellis

Your Local Scuba Store…No Matter Where You Live!

It is common knowledge that new scuba diver certifications are at a stalemate and that the industry is barely able to maintain the number of “active” divers from one year to the next.  While this heavily impact everyone in the scuba diving industry, none feel it as brutally as the local scuba retail store.  For several years, local scuba stores have been wondering when someone was going to do something about this very low certification rate.  It seems as if no one takes responsibility for the overall health of the industry.

Several days ago, I made a post about the Be a Diver campaign that will be launched by the Dive Equipment Marketers Association (DEMA) early in 2008.  The campaign includes cross-sport advertising in magazines and periodicals, Internet promotion on the www.beadiver.com website, and television commercials in select major markets.  This campaign offers some great potential to let non-divers know just how easy and fun it is to become a scuba diver.

Today, DEMA announced that the Divers Alert Network and most of the major scuba diving certification agencies have signed on to this program and will provide support in dollars, promotional efforts, andhuman resources to make sure that this program is a success.

San Diego, Calif. – (December 3, 2007) – The Diving Equipment and Marketing Association (DEMA) today announces the endorsement of their soon-to-be-launched Diver Acquisition Campaign – Be A Diver – by some of the Industry’s training organizations: Divers Alert Network (DAN), Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI), Scuba Diving International (SDI/TDI) and Scuba Schools International (SSI). The endorsement comes following the announcement of the Be A Diver campaign and the preview of the national television and print advertising last month at DEMA Show 2007 in Orlando, Florida.

Quote taken from DiveNewsWire Press Release

I certainly hope this campaign by DEMA is successful.  The entire industry needs to pull in the same direction, for a change, and realize that the ONLY way to grow this industry and grow this sport is to make sure that the widest possible audience is aware of the benefits of this sport.  Maybe 2008 will be the year that finally gets the good message out about scuba diving.  I hope we see a surge in new diver certifications next year.  Good luck DEMA.

Phil Ellis

Learn to Scuba Dive at Dive Sports!