Stupid Diving Ads

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bwerb

Hoser/English Translator, eh
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I decided to spin this off from another thread. What is up with some of the completely horrible examples of divers in advertisements and photos in popular dive magazines and brutally bad dive practices in promotional videos?

There are so many things going wrong in some of the photos it is unreal. How many dangling consoles do you see? How many examples of feet down trim? Check out the (Naui) ad in the July issue of Dive Training...what is the yellow upline for? If they are in trouble...just stand up :D.

I was watching some "promotional" videos from various Carribean dive locations and just cringed...my favorite is one where the voiceover talks about the great environmental concern and beauty of the reef while the diver in question has a massive console about to take-out a fan coral. Then they had videos of people riding on the backs of turtles as examples of what fun you could have.

Anyone else have any peeves about how divers are portrayed?
 
I am NAUI certified and the add you are referring to makes me cringe.

I will admit that the first time in the pool we started out on the bottom but quickly had to start performing our skills in the water column(didn't always get it perfect but always working on it). The other main point our instructor made was that your gear was to always be squared away (otherwise if you were caught with something dangling you owed him a beer for each offense :wink: ).

I think that everyone should at least try to stay off the bottom and keep your gear stowed just as a common courtesy. I really hate it when the local pond gets silted up.

Cheers
 
It's not that we need to single out agencies...it's that I like to think that ads should show..."the bar" as it were. I want to see "airbrushed perfection" :D, divers who look amazing in the water. I don't know of any other sport which exemplifies mediocrity in their promotional materials. Rock climbing and whitewater kayaking and skiing magazines show photos of people doing things you could only dream of unless you were a professional...you see where it is "possible" to go.
 
Thunderball, the first underwater scene w/ Bond and Domino.. He's grabbing coral, she's riding on back of turtle, taking sea life (Starfish) , stepping on coral (and getting her foot stuck..)

All the stuff we know one should not do today..
 
bwerb once bubbled...
How many dangling consoles do you see?


I've noticed this too. THere're so many of these that it's almost like they're doing it on purporse. Sheesh. Don't editors notice things like that? We certainly do.
 
In our shop we have a wall of pictures from magazines. We call it "Mikes wall of shame". The pictures depict every diving taboo that you can think of. In one the person is wearing a bc but the inflator hose isn't hooked up so it's no surprise that the diver is sitting on the bottom because she can't put air in her bc. LOL.

Even the training video is funny as hell. I have a guy trying to talk me into making my own and I might.
 
bwerb once bubbled...
...it's that I like to think that ads should show..."the bar" as it were. I want to see "airbrushed perfection"

I agree. I spent several years training and competing in the dressage and 3day eventing arena, so I decided to pull out one of my Equestrian mags and every ad you see literally shows perfection from both horse and rider. When you see this type of ad it should make you aspire to this type of performance (it does for me). I do realize that this takes time as well as huge amounts of training (definitely with horses), but the effort alone will yield results even if you never reach perfection (which is virtually impossible:wink: ).

I believe everyone should try to improve performance as it makes whatever the endeavor easier and more enjoyable.:)

Cheers
 
jiveturkey once bubbled...



I've noticed this too. THere're so many of these that it's almost like they're doing it on purporse. Sheesh. Don't editors notice things like that? We certainly do.

It's not the editors and it isn't the advertising people who don't know are in a business other than diving. The training videos even depict terible performance. The pictures look just like most of the divers I see.

The fact is that what some of us view as lousy is considered normal by moust. Those magazize adds and the training videos are an acurate picture of diving today. Just look at the article illustrations in a mag like Dive Training.

They're doing it exactly as they think they should.
 
Technical accuracy isn't always the first thing that marketing people use to determine a good photograph.

It's an advertisement, not a manual. Just enjoy the picture, and waste your heart attack on something else.
 
GlockDiver once bubbled...
Technical accuracy isn't always the first thing that marketing people use to determine a good photograph.

It's an advertisement, not a manual. Just enjoy the picture, and waste your heart attack on something else.

Well spoken. They are trying to sell something, not presenting dive skills. Geez, do you get this worked up when the guy powerslides his Camery across the 405?
 

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