Q&A with Mark van Heffen, Heesen’s Marketing Director

Q&A with Mark van Heffen , Heesen’s Marketing Director.

Words by Sofia Gymer

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In the yachting market, why is it important to differentiate your brand? How can a company do that?

To position a brand well and stand out, you need to build some character. It’s important to show your network and clients the DNA and convictions behind the brand. Telling people about the luxury of your product and what makes it physically different is essential. But that explains what you do and not necessarily who you are. Building a superyacht is all about trust. It’s a big project that takes two and a half to three years.

So it's extremely important for our clients and the rest of the people in our network to trust the yard. To trust our brand and to trust our people.

By showing your character, you build that trust.

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Heesen has a very distinct personality. Can you tell me who Heesen is as a brand and why it works?

We build people’s dreams and we have the highest quality in the market. But we are also bold, brave and have a lot of energy. We are slightly younger and a bit more rebellious. We dare to build superyachts which are spectacular, and in some instances, world-firsts. On top of that, we excel in the field of innovation in terms of technology and sustainability. Our products are hand-crafted, mostly in-house to ensure the job is done to the highest level.

Brand consistency is not necessarily in the activities you do, but in the look, feel and tone of voice. We connect more by being authentic, honest and direct.

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Heesen has a long and impressive history. How can a brand remain authentic and lean into its heritage, but also stay relevant?

Our heritage is our credibility. Our track record. Heesen was founded in 1978 and we’ve built around 200 superyachts since then. We have half a century of expertise and knowledge, plus a large fleet on the water.

We realise that to stay relevant and remain the best, we must innovate - with our portfolio, in the field of sustainability, but also in our communications. You must continuously reinvent your tone of voice, look and feel to keep connecting to your target groups.

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Talking about how the world is changing, are your key markets or client demographic changing? How are you adapting to that? And how can other brands adapt to that?

When the war in Ukraine started, we immediately saw a large shift, of course. The good thing is that the US market is growing. So that’s where we’ve shifted more of our efforts. In the US, you need to bring even more passion, energy, more lifestyle. Most of our clients are, let's say, raised on the water. So we adapt. Social media and digital media are a great tool, because the market is too big to reach with just events, sponsoring or traditional media.

Americans like having a local connection, for sales as well as after sales. We’ve worked successfully for a couple of years with Thomas Conboy , our agent for the US markets. We offer the human touch and continuity.

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Boat shows are one of the most traditional forms of marketing yachts. How important are they now?

They are still very important. With the entrance of social media and digital media, there are more cost effective ways of reaching your network. However, the boat shows are important to actually meet your network. We meet captains, representatives with clients, journalists, and all kinds of other stakeholders from the industry. If you have a yacht there, then it's very effective to meet clients onboard because they can experience your product first hand. That's the big difference at boat shows.

Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach, Monaco and Dubai are the four key shows for our segment.

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Tell me about one of Heesen’s most successful campaigns.

We launched YachtTalk during the pandemic. The boat shows were down. We could not communicate with our network in person, so we created our own online television programme with a host and guests to talk about the industry. What I think was a good decision is that we didn't only talk about Heesen. We invited captains, brokers, journalists, designers, all kinds of disciplines to the table to talk about developments in the markets. We created a sub brand underneath the brand Heesen and we still use it today, but differently. Now it has become a bit more of a brand reporting tool. Strategically and tactically it was a strong move.

Our lifestyle campaigns are a key way we engage with our Heesen friends and family. We did a nationwide campaign where we made an exclusive e-bike. We also created our own bottle of Heesen gin that we use as gifts. We created our own interior fragrance, as it’s well known that smell is the most nostalgic sense and can evoke memories. We also send out our Heesen tulip each spring. It’s a reminder of our Dutch heritage and craftsmanship. It's not a coincidence that it’s a purple tulip. We added the colour purple to the brand a couple of years ago.

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So what future challenges will face yacht brands? And how is Heesen preparing?

First, sustainability. As an industry we are catching up. We do a lot at Heesen to preserve the environment and future of yachting. Crucially we apply the six pillars of our BlueNautech programme - energy saving technology and practices that preserve materials. We don't do green washing.

We do things which have proven results. Second, building the credibility of the industry. We need to make it more clear just how important the industry is for employment and technological development in the marine industry. The industry is not only about excess, or giving a boat to the rich, but about a very high level of craftsmanship within the maritime industry.

Basically what we do is build Champions League ships with the best materials, the best products, with the best specialists and people behind.

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So marketing trends, including certain social media trends, and also AI, do you think that these kinds of processes and techniques will work for a specialist industry like yachting?

Social media is extremely important. Our talented PR & Press Office Manager Sara Gioanola oversees a strong strategy and we have leading positions on a lot of channels. YouTube is our strongest and used by our network to show our yachts to prospective clients. We are effective in visual communication, with lots of photography and video stories. The advantage we have is that superyachts do attract a lot of attention.

The main objective is to build awareness around the brand and to interact with our network, especially within the brokerage community - then you create some spin off to clients. It sounds strange, but because the client target group is so small, it’s not an objective primarily by itself. We reach our blind target group, in most cases through network interaction. AI is interesting. We follow this closely from multiple perspectives. There is some potential but we will also be careful, because at the end of the day, we still need to have a strong human touch.

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