January 18, 2021

Big news this week! The Virtual Toronto International Boat Show is open all this week and we just learned that the NMMA and Informa Markets will bring the Miami International Boat Show together with the Miami Yacht Show starting in 2022. They will be moving back to South Beach and other great locations in Miami, and all of it will be under the Miami International Boat Show name in February 2022. Let’s all pray that the great disruption that is COVID-19 will finally be gone by then and we can get back to normal.

There are a few things about this new partnership that are worth noting from a marketing perspective. 

Last week in this column, I wrote about the number of ad exposures it takes to get the attention of a potential customer. Some say three exposures, some say seven and one early marketer felt the number was 20. Actually, it really depends on where the potential customer is in their purchasing process.

For a boat buyer, that purchasing process may be a long journey starting from, “never thought about owning a boat before” to “gotta have that boat for this summer”.  The great disruption of COVID-19 helped a lot of people decide that a new boat was a great solution for their vacation and recreation plans, but one of the logical places to learn about new boats would have been at a boat show. COVID-19 shut down almost all the boat shows this year.

Advertising in boating magazines is a solid and obvious choice if you are selling boats, so go hard there, but boat shows are important too. It’s great to see that the Toronto International Boat Show has opened this week, even if it’s in virtual form.

Certainly, this will be a different experience but hopefully, it will get the information out there even if there’s no scent of fiberglass, or anything to actually touch. What is very important from a marketing perspective is that the show continues to go on and therefore the advertising exposures continue. With each exposure, potential customers move closer to the buying decision and the virtual shows help to keep up that momentum.

It’s interesting to note that the NMMA is planning a virtual aspect to the 2022 Miami Show even though it’s planned as an in-person show. There is big value to that digital information and especially to the continuity it offers to potential buyers.

For the Toronto Boat Show that opened yesterday and to the Vancouver Boat Show opening February 3^rd, we applaud the effort to re-invent the shows as virtual and recognize the value of the advertising continuity.

Andy Adams – Editor