WHAT does your future client look like in 5, 10, 15 years from now?

"You want the truth?"

"You can’t handle the truth!"

Turns out Jack Nicholson's famous line in the film A Few Good Men is rather apt when discussing diversity in the yachting industry.

Yachting companies and marketers?regularly?say they want to engage with diverse audiences via?actions and content that actually represents them.?Yet, high profile initiatives in the superyacht industry are selling our future clients and employees short.?Why??Because we have a lot of yachting companies who say they're making changes but they’re not.?

Diversity and inclusion are not just ‘the right thing to do’. ?We are facing a true crisis in believing action is being taken when it isn’t, which leads to delay in change. ?Let’s be clear - many companies are not diversity ambassadors merely because they’ve said they are.

They have systematically failed to address the core messaging and actions embedded within numerous companies.?There is a difference between the truth of what is said and the authenticity of what is done.?Standing up to bad behaviour with individuals, organisations and brands will shift the diversity and inclusion needle in the yachting industry, because people are waking up to see that?hierarchical leadership and authenticity are key.

Generation Z in particular is watching us as an industry, peeling away the veneer of lofty written promises.?Feedback from the yachting industry is proof that these promises fall short.?

1. If you’re one of the 75 yachting websites I analysed in March 2021 you will already know that the % of yachting websites who promote diversity is shamefully low.?No one had ever taken a fine-tuned snapshot of our outward web communication, either geographically or across different sectors in the industry.? Inching closer to the end of 2021, we can all do better!??
2. Get your communications/marketing/design team and CEO to look at?your website and marketing collateral today.?Look at your people-centric imagery on your home page, services page, sales brochures and social media posts and consider what’s missing.
3. Take a look at yacht marketing and you will see there’s a pattern with imagery that has existed for many years.?It’s a script that you could write blindfolded : Good looking bikini babes and couples on the yacht deck or in the jacuzzi, or a family comprised of a husband, wife, son and daughter.?Yawn.?Are we not more creative than this????There is a distinct lack of ethnicity, gender, family and age representation in yachting imagery.?
4. Yachting companies need to prioritise communication to the next generation of global customers and employ content creators and marketing teams who actively use photographers, graphic designers and writers who promote diversity.?There are some beautiful models of all nationalities and ages that can be placed in charter brochures!?
5. I’ve called this out before, but we still have a huge gap with balancing the range of people called upon for their insight on speaker panels at yachting events.?I’m watching our events like a hawk and tracking the imbalance….more data to come in the future….
6. Please OPEN your minds to future market opportunities.?Six months ago, I had two well-known yacht photographers contact me and tell me they had pitched two ethnic models for a photo shoot for a leading brokerage.?The brokerage told them,?“Sorry they're not the look we’re going for.”?WHAT does your future client look like in 5, 10, 15 years from now??Too often we consider non-buyers as a rejected client base, when in fact they might not be invited to the table to experience yachting brands in the first place.

I am still so disappointed to see the lack of conviction with people not speaking up about this!?

??Yachting events with speaker panels that aren’t inviting new perspectives.?

??Leading companies who demonstrate no indication that they understand representation of their future employees and customers.?

??Yacht crew that need to be given their full humanity to speak for themselves about discrimination without the fear of being sent private messages to?‘hush up’ and 'keep things out of the public domain’. If?you want your employees to be part of a team, you must respect everyone as an individual with a story of their own.?

It’s well overdue the superyacht industry moves toward becoming more relatable and more authentic or we will lose excellent prospective employees to other industries.?We need to work smarter to build communities that will engage with our brands, because no one changed the world by half caring.?

And that's what we should be thinking about every day - it all starts and ends with people.?

Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!

?? Read my original article "The Truth Economy: Uncovering Diversity in Yachting" here: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/truth-economy-uncovering-diversity-yachting-rebecca-whitlocke/?trackingId=DZTF2W1sQeGMoseMuCyAJQ%3D%3D

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