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Promotion and Marketing
Powerboat Adventures:
As touched on in the previous section. It would seem that, for some time now, Powerboat Adventures has been focusing most of their resources on "Branding". This conclusion is reinforced by the fact that, other than the recent acquisition of a much larger boat (a fact which I am continuing to blatantly ignore) there would appear to be virtually no changes to their operation (or product) since I left the Bahamas - some 8 years ago - except for a slow steady increase in the price of a "ticket to ride"
I suspect that the owner Nigel Bower probably lost interest in "the product" itself long before that and has focused his efforts primarily on "Branding" and improving cost controls - in order to generate more profits. Clearly, he has done a very good job with this effort - as evidenced by all the excellent publicity he has garnered from the main stream media - such as the New York Times, BBC, Playboy, ESPN, Rolling Stone and the aforementioned Discovery Channel.
It is really quite astonishing that there has not been a single change in the actual product (which I have been able to pick up on) over such a long time period. I recall back then that there was much talk about expanding the operation to include overnight stays - but clearly, nothing much has has happened in that department. The item mentioned on a prior page, about the constant complaints over the lack of any shade or lounge chairs on the beach and the apparent total lack of response, from Powerboat Adventures provides further evidence that my guess is probably correct.
It would seem that adopting this strategy of focusing on "Branding" rather the on improving the product itself was a very wise one. Powerboat Adventures # 2 spot on Discovery Channel and on TripAdviser is success that you cannot argue with. If everybody agrees that "The Emperor is wearing the finest set of clothes the world has ever seen" - don't mess with the wardrobe!
Naturally, the above refers to the Hans Christian Anderson tale of "The Emperors New Clothes". This is one of the best early portrayals - not only of the incredible power of "Branding" - but, paradoxically, the inherent fragility of the strategy.- when confronted by pure innocent rationality - in the eyes of a child.
How exactly one goes about persuading The New York Times travel editor or the powers that be at the B.B.C. or The Discovery Channel and all the others - to proudly carry the banners at the head of the Powerboat Adventures parade - I have no idea. but clearly Nigel has accomplished it and all one can say is "Good on ya mate!"
Power Boat Adventures is, by no means, alone - in opting to employ this particular strategy. On the contrary, it would seem to be, by far, the most popular business strategy employed today. It would also seem to be fairly common occurrence in our type of business that, while the founders may start off with the idea of sharing activities (which they happens to enjoy) with paying guests, they soon become bored with the same old - same old - day after day - month after month - year after year
Rather than modify the "Product" to be more interesting and enjoyable for themselves (and, therefore, presumably, also for their guests) it is seen as simpler and more "business like" to keep it just as it is and to continue the operation strictly as a profit generating enterprise - just like any other. The goal then becomes simply trying to make the operation as efficient and effective as possible - in accomplishing the goal of generating profits.
Whether the product one is producing and marketing happens to be "adventure tours" or "toilet seats" no longer makes much difference. The object of the exercise is simply to generate as much profit from the operation as possible - which one can then utilize in one's personal pursuits.
Powerboat Adventures definitely needs all the help they can get from their, clearly very successful, "Branding" campaign - to overcome the huge marketing disadvantage they face - because of their very high (weather related) cancellation rate. Whether the marketing is local or international, a cancellation rate of, presumably, at least 50 % has to present both their tour agents and their customers - with a whole lot of problems - and a whole lot of negative impressions.
Panama Adventure Tours
Clearly it will be some time before Panama Adventure Tours has any chance at all of boasting a powerful "Brand" and organizing parades with the New York Times and B.B.C. acting as our standard bearers. In the short term, our only option is to continually work at improving our product and do all we can to get a few people to sample it. As heretical as it might sound, this could well turn out to be the most effective long term strategy as well.
No question, in our culture today, the vast majority of successful businesses (like Powerboat Adventures) opt for the "Image is everything" business strategy - Branding! Branding! Branding! Coca Cola, McDonalds, Gucci, Rolex, Nike - you name them - a huge proportion of their resources is directed towards waving the corporate flag or "Branding".
In many of these cases the success of this "Branding" strategy is utilized primarily to demand and get extraordinarily high prices for their product. In other cases, prices are kept within reason and the success of the Branding campaign serves to increase market share for their product. Most businesses fall somewhere between these two extremes. No doubt, however, the vast majority of successful businesses apportion a very large slice of their resources toward their "Branding" strategies
There is however, at least one very notable exception. Take Google. If you were smart enough to actually "take" Google 10 years ago (i.e. provide them with a little venture capital) the increase in your share value today would have been astronomical. This is certainly not too shabby - for a business which would appear not to have invested a single penny in "Branding" - over the time period.
Google's primary "product" or "service" might be described as"directing their customers to information - which is most relevant to their requirements" and clearly they invest an enormous amount of time and effort in constantly improving their product. In the process (and in the short space of about ten years) they just happen to have become the most powerful "Brand" in the world - with an estimated "Brand value" of 100 billion $ U.S.
When one compares this valuation to the valuation of 5 billion for the "Rolex" brand (a business which has clearly spent considerably more than a few pennies - over the last 100 years on "Branding") Google's strategy might seem to be deserving of further consideration.
Seeing as Google's "Primary Product" has always been and continues to be free, they clearly have not utilized the extraordinary success of their "Brand" to increase their prices. Instead, they have opted for increasing their market share - which is now running about 75 % world wide. It is this result of their efforts (namely, billions of eyes on their web sites) which has enabled them to market a "Secondary Product" - "paid advertising placement" - which, in 2009, provided revenues of approximately 23 billion $ U.S.
Panama Adventure Tours product might be described as "The Perfect Escape" and it would seem that we would be well served by adopting Google as our role model and focusing our resources on continually "perfecting" our "Product" rather than a very costly, endless "Branding" campaign. Incidentally, googling "the perfect escape" will provide approximately 30 million results - the first or second of which may be somewhat surprising.
While nothing would be served by our giving away our "Product" for free, clearly it would not be "The Perfect Escape" if we were to start charging outrageous prices for our tours. Like Google then, we intend to focus our efforts on increasing our market share. In our case however, a miniscule percentage of global market share will put us in a position of operating at 100% of our capacity.
Establishing. promoting, marketing and operating your standard, "snorkeling /booze crooze" is a fairly simple, straight forward (and often very profitable) project - as I first learned some 40 years ago - with the establishment of a very successful operation at, what is now known as, the St. James Club in Antigua. The operative word for this type of operation is "more" - more people, more booze and more volume from the speakers equals more profits.
On the other hand, the operation, which we will be attempting to establish, promote and operate is a rather more fragile and sensitive one. We will be attempting to provide a "Product" which is a very close facsimile of - an "outing", which a "fairly well to do" individual (who happened to live in Boquete and happened to own Grand Illusion) might provide for a small group of very good friends - ie "The Perfect Escape".
We intend to ignore the old business philosophy that "If you are operating at 100 % capacity, your prices are too low". To be seen as "squeezing the last ounce of profit" out of our particular "Product", would definitely detract from the design mandate of the "Product". In fact, our intention is to achieve and maintain an operating level at 100 % of our maximum capacity.
There is no question that, from the get go, our "Product" will be capable of providing more "customer satisfaction" (to a substantial portion of the market) than the "Product" provided by Powerboat Adventures (and, presumably, most similar operations) - by a ridiculously large margin. Consequently, we will be starting with a tremendous advantage. Focusing on this goal, of constantly improving our "Product", will also minimize the chances of the owner / operators and the hired crew becoming bored.
In this same vein, one of the owners will always be aboard - on any and every tour and we intend to rotate both owners and crew with sufficient frequency to ensure that neither are even close to feeling "burnt out". This in turn, will give us another big advantage - in that, the best "act", put on by the most talented "charming" crew members (even with the aid of an open bar), cannot compete with "the real thing" - i.e a crew that is genuinely interested, excited, and happy to be involved here and now with this tour at this time - with this particular group of guests - and every single individual guest.
Actually, given our situation, the choice, between focusing on "Branding" or "Product" is not a difficult one. Firstly, Grand Illusion (the boat we have custom designed and built fot this operation) is probably one of the worst boats in the world to use as the centerpiece of a "Branding" campaign. The reason for this is that (to put it kindly) in the eyes of most beholders, "Sex appeal" is not Grand Illusion's strongest suit.
On the other hand, this unique, innovative boat is, arguably, the best boat, in the world, to use as the centerpiece of of a diverse "adventure tour operation" - in a tropical island archipelago - such as the Gulf of Chiriqui. It would seem then that we are stuck with focusing our resources on - "the contents and not the package" - the "steak and not the sizzle" - "the substance and not the image".
For the business, which has opted to focus their resources on "Branding", their promotional materials can be very short simple and straightforward. For instance, in the case of McDonalds or Coca Cola, a very nice image of their "Product" above their logo and a catchy phrase or two should suffice to elicit the carefully considered, well researched, perfectly rational response from the potential customer - namely "That would be great in me!"
Similarly, in the case of Rolex or Gucci or even Mercedes Benz, the same overall guidelines apply - in order to elicit the desired response of "That would look great on me". In my past efforts to persuade Powerboat Adventures to trade in their "very sexy" (very inefficient and ineffective) "go fast" boats for a far more effective and efficient Magic Carpet catamaran, their response was always that the "Miami Vice" image was precisely what sold the tours.
No doubt, they were quite right in this judgement - as clearly, many of their tours are sold simply because the customer believes that the boat, (which is shown-on the web site or the brochure) "Would look great on me" Hence like Coca Cola or Gucci, all Powerboat Adventures require for their promotional materials are "a couple of nice images above their logo and a catchy phrase or two".
Pity the poor business which has chosen the other option - regarding their promotion and marketing - namely, focusing their resources on improving their actual "Product". How on earth are they going to communicate the very extensive and often very complex reasons for the enhanced effectiveness of their "Product" to the general public.
Unfortunately, it would seem that this task will require "words" - lots and lots of boring, very unsexy, and currently very unpopular "words" and even a few complete sentences - not a catchy phrase or two. How on earth, in this day and age, are we going to persuade anyone to read more than a paragraph? Perhaps, there is another way to provide the public with full and detailed information about our product -without subjecting them to the cruel and unusual punishment of being bombarded with words.
While "Branding" may not be our top priority, we do plan to make an extensive image and video library available on our website - which will provide concrete visual evidence of the quality of our product. This tactic is employed by Calypso Cruises an apparently very successful similar type of operation in Costa Rica.
However, seeing as their operation is basically a straightforward "Booze Crooze" (without even much in the way of snorkeling) the content of their archives (like their tour itself) is really really boring. How many images or videos of people drinking and sitting around (or dancing around) on a boat (or on a beach) can one watch?
Panama Adventure Tours' image and video archives on the other hand (with a reasonable standard of editing) are likely to prove very interesting - to previous guests, potential guests and casual web site visitors alike. This feature will directly contribute to the number of visitors to our web site - thereby improving our ranking with the search engines - thereby increasing the number of visitors to our web site - thereby ... etc. etc.
In addition, this image and video archive (particularly the video) will provide the means of communicating an enormous amount of relevant information about our product in a painless and, in fact, quite entertaining manner. Unfortunately, at this point in time, we are unable to provide either images or videos of our tours - and will not have the means of doing so - until such time as the operation is ongoing.
Clearly, at this time, we could fork out several thousand dollars for some decent virtual images and videos. We have considered this - but this would put a lot of stress on our current budget. Consequently, at this time, the only tools we have at our disposal to persuade potential investors to join us, are "words". What can we say? - except "sorry about that".
In keeping with our overall strategy, we do not plan on paying any sales commissions to anyone - anywhere - at any time. As spelled out on our Apollo Duck web site we will be only too happy to recommend other operations - in exchange for them recommending ours. However, we neither expect to receive - nor are we prepared to pay any commissions in this regard.
However, we do plan on enlisting two of the most powerfull online"travel agents" on the planet today - who, fortunately for us do not charge any commisions. These travel agents go by the names of "Facebook" and "Myspace". The only "payment" required is a "one time payment" of whatever it takes to get guests on our tours and to provide them with an excellent "Product".
We believe that a "payment" of a 50 % discount on our tours for perhaps the first month of operation will be sufficient to acccomplish the first goal - and a few bottles of champagne, added to our usual very high standard "Product", will be sufficient to acccomplish the second.
By means of these arrangement - coupled with an already quite strong Internet presence, we expect to generate sufficient business to get the operation up to cruising speed - in a hurry. In the longer term, we expect that, like Google, our "Brand" will slowly gain recognition and value (with little direct "inorganic manipulations" on our part) and begin contributing to the growth and success of our operation.
As the case of Google perfectly illustrates, natural "organic" growth of a "Brand" (based primarily on the effectiveness of "The Product") inevitably leads to a very powerful "Brand" indeed - and one that rests on an unshakable foundation.
Powerboat Adventures (Bahamas) vs. Panama Adventure Tours
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Powerboat Adventures (Bahamas) vs. Panama Adventure Tours
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Links to provisional web pages for Panama Adventure Tours
The Market
Global Market
Unlike, as is the case for the "Products" provided by "McDonalds" and "Coca Cola",
the global market for the "Products", provided by Powerboat Adventures and Panama Adventure Tours, will be somewhat limited. From a total of say 6 billion potential customers for the former "Products", we can probably eliminate 5 billion, in regard to the latter - for "lack of sufficient disposable income" - leaving us with 1 billion. Let us further eliminate another 500 million individuals - for living in a geographical area - inconveniently far away from the outlets for our respective "Products".
This leaves us with a market of perhaps 500 million. Of these, anther 200 million could probably be classified as being too old, too young or too "challenged" - to use the politically correct idiom. The remaining 300 million can be loosely divided into 2 groups - the "Urban oriented" and the "Nature oriented". The former would prefer environments with more people and the latter those with less people. The former would gravitate towards activities available at destinations like "Disney Land". "Las Vegas" or a "Floating City" cruise ship - while the latter would represent our potential market
Assuming 200 million lean towards an urban environment we are left with a market of 100 million people. Let us assume that 20 million, of these, are individuals who (like their distant cousins - inhabiting the volcanic vents - miles down at the bottom of the ocean) might be classified as "extremophiles". These highly competitive, highly energetic, driven individuals will likely find the "Products" offered by both Powerboat Adventures and Panama Adventure Tours far too bland for their taste.
This leaves 80 million people for Power Adventures and Panama Adventure Tours to battle over. While these 80 million people will probably tend to be significantly more rational than the world population as a whole, we can still count on them (like virtually all members of the "homo sapiens" species) belying their scientific name - and, quite often, being very irrational indeed.
That being said, they will all probably still share the rational goal of getting
"the most bang for their buck" - or purchasing those items which, in their judgement, will provide them with the most "happiness" per dollar invested - or the best value.
Their "irrationality" (if such a term is applicable - in matters of personal taste) will be demonstrated by their individual choices in this regard.
In the previous cut, we will have probably already eliminated many of the potential customers for the $25,000 a night "Bridge suite" at the "Atlantis Resort" or the $5,000 "Armani suit" - along with a majority of "status driven" individuals. The reason for this is that "status" requires large crowds of admirers - to reap the full benefits. Naturally, such crowds are more likely to be found in an urban setting than a natural setting.
In fact then, it would appear that the potential market for for the products of both Power Boat Adventure and Panama Adventure Tours will be composed (for the most part) of fairly rational people - who will tend to employ some degree of rational thought processes in their decision making - and will be somewhat less influenced by status or "Brand" than the general global population.
As the following sections will illustrate, this fact gives a significant advantage to Panama Adventure Tours over Power boat Adventures - in regard to their respective marketing strategies. To operate at full capacity (300 days for the former - 150 days fro the latter) both operations require about 8000 customers annually - or about
0.01 % of our estimated global market.
Seeing as the 80 million persons, in our market, already represent a rather more rational segment of the global population, the top million of these should be really rational and therefore prone to making decisions on a rational basis - rather than blindly following the dictates of the "Branding" powers that be. This is more bad news for Powerboat Adventures and more good news for Panama Adventure Tours. It would still only require about a 0.1 % share of this exclusive market for Panama Adventure Tours to operate at maximum capacity.
Local Market
As stated in a previous page, Powerboat Adventures will have access to a far larger and far more upscale local market than that available to Panama Adventure Tours.
However, this market will be composed largely of individuals who fit in to the "Urban oriented" category and, while Powerboat Adventure powerful "Brand" or "status" will no doubt attract more than a few of these, the actual potential market of genuine "Nature oriented" individuals will be a rather small percentage of the total.
The local market for Panama Adventure Tours will no doubt be much smaller and much less upscale . However, the proportion of genuine "Nature oriented" individuals will be very high and the vast majority, while, perhaps not candidates for the "Bridge Suite" at the "Atlantis Resort", will have "sufficient disposable income" - to afford our tours.
Powerboat Adventures (Bahamas) vs. Panama Adventure Tours
* Rupert Holmes - "Escape" - better known as "The Piña Colada Song".
trading as:
Powerboat Adventures vs. Panama Adventure Tours vs. Powerboat Adventures
Panama Adventure Tours is not yet open for business.
Projected start up - Nov. 2010. This web site is currently just a rough draft.
However, "If you like Piña Coladas - - - and you have half a brain"*
- plus a nodding acquaintance with the English language,
you may find the current content interesting and remarkably rewarding - - - approximately 100% rewarding.
This particularly applies to those who live, work, play and / or own / operate a tourism related business in:
Chiriqui, Panama - or Panama City, Panama - or San Jose, Costa Rica - or would like to.
