SCUBA Marketing...

[slowdiver]

One of the ways to spread the word about diving is to take a look around your local community and see what good a few divers could do. Possibly a cleanup day for a local water area. I am sure you could get the word out as a public service in local news papers and maybe even local radio. There are many conservation gruops that would love to have the help of a group of divers. We all need to help promote the sport.

 

[DivePartner1]

Maybe a better question is "why?"

 

[airhog30]

I am with slowdiver. The best way to promote the sport is locally. I work with a local dealer and we promote through the usual media (billboard, tv, radio, newpaper) but we also setup at outdoor shows, and festivals.

Our goal this is year is to work with water conservation groups to help clean streams and promote SCUBA. Also work with the local Army Corps of Engineers to create an Underwater Park at the Lake. Should get a lot of interest from the media on the last one.

These efforts really seem to pay off.

 

[FredT]

Why promote the sport?

The "easy to get to" reefs and wrecks are crowed already!

The ignorance factor of non-divers is legendary. Fears developed at the movies and in front of the "boob tube" are endemic. The misinformation put out by the "fear sells ads and tickets" entertainmant industry makes most "dive related" programming "comedy programming" for anyone who has even the slightest clue about how the ocean and diving really works. Any "mainstream" program that accurately presented diving would fail from sheer viewer boredom when put up against the "fear factor" programming currently in vogue, so any diving involved programming has hazards to divers exagerated by several orders of magnitude to raise the fear level. This same distortion hurts YOU by raising life insurace rates from the "percieved" dangers of diving, when in fact it is safer from participant-hour injuries and deaths than bowling!

Gear and participation costs for recreational scuba diving is about even with golf or downhill skiing, with much lower net costs where beach diving is possible. $s to get into the should not be an issue as the barriers to entry (lessons and gear) are also similar. It's the artifically manufactured fear that is the difference!

FT