Showboats | Maine's boat builders launch a new effort to market themselves collectively

Four years ago, maritime journalist Nigel Calder received an assignment to profile the New Zealand boat-building industry for Professional Boatbuilder magazine. Before flying halfway around the world from his home in Alna, though, he contacted MAREX, a state-sponsored group devoted to promoting New Zealand's boat builders, to see what information they had. With no hesitation, MAREX helped set up boatyard tours for Calder and arranged portions of his travel. When he arrived, they eagerly answered questions, took him sailing and generally put on what he remembers as "a pretty good show."

But even as the Kiwis did their best to impress him, Calder couldn't help thinking about his home state. "I could see instantly the parallels with Maine: a small boat-building country with a long tradition of building high-quality boats in small shops," he says. "But [in New Zealand] they took those small shops and gave them an infrastructure that allowed them to benefit from each other's activities and become big shops."

By the time Calder visited New Zealand, the country's boat-building export business was booming, thanks in part to MAREX promoting New Zealand boat yards and helping develop a skilled workforce to handle the increased production. Between 1994 and 2003, the industry grew from $80 million to almost $400 million. Along the way, the country became known for building some of the most prestigious boats in the world, ranging from Americas Cup racers to superyachts like the 178-foot Tiara ˆ— purportedly the first sailboat with its own helipad. Calder's close encounter with MAREX led him to envision a similar organization touting the capabilities of Maine's boat builders.

Upon returning home, Calder described his concept in a white paper called "Maine: The Boatbuilding State," which highlighted Maine's abundance of high-end boat builders and renowned boat-building schools ˆ— as well as its beautiful cruising waters ˆ— as the perfect raw materials from which to create a truly global boat-building image. That document, which circulated among boat builders and within the State House, ultimately sparked a year-long effort by a group of Maine's best-known boat builders, the Maine Marine Trades Association and members of the state Department of Economic and Community Development to put Calder's concept into practice.

Last month, on the opening day of the annual Maine Boatbuilders Show in Portland, that group launched the Maine Built Boats Organization, an initiative to jointly market Maine's hundreds of independent boat builders, and to help develop the skilled workforce, production techniques and technologies to keep those companies at the top of the industry. By establishing the "Maine-built boat" as a unique brand identity, signifying such things as quality, seaworthiness, craftsmanship and individual attention to customers, the MBBO hopes to make Maine's boats stand out both from mass-produced yachts and from custom work being performed in other countries.

To propagate that brand, the group plans to host events that bring more yacht designers, sailors and journalists to the state. It also envisions sponsoring joint advertising campaigns and Maine-themed booths at the world's biggest boat shows. By getting their message out, group members estimate that in the next 10 years they can grow Maine's boat and boat-related sales from $650 million annually to more than $1 billion.

The MBBO's approach is similar to tactics other countries and regions have used to compete in a global economy. The idea is to make "Maine-built boats" a phrase and consumer brand as recognizable as Colombian coffee, Napa Valley wines or Swiss watches. But creating a so-called place brand is more competitive today than it was 10 or 20 years ago, says Malcolm Allen, founding director of Placebrands, an international consulting firm with offices in England and the Netherlands that helps cities, countries and regions develop unique brands to promote economic development.

It's not enough to simply link a country's main export to a concept like quality, the way Colombia did with its coffee two decades ago, according to Allen. Today, a brand also must convey something about the people, culture and geography of its place of origin. "Putting a place brand or a sector brand together is about telling the story of its difference," says Allen. "You have to figure out what kind of associations people make between the product and its location."

Even though Maine's boat builders aren't experts in place branding or other high-level marketing concepts, the group that came together to form the MBBO quickly saw economic development potential in telling the collective story of Maine's individual boat builders, says Steve Von Vogt, special projects manager with Hodgdon Yachts in East Boothbay and one of the organizers of the MBBO.

"Every couple of years there's some new rage when [the state] runs around trying to establish a center of excellence for biotech or high tech or something," says Von Vogt. "But we've been building boats in Maine since 1607, and we've developed substantial expertise in composite and wooden boat development. It seemed natural to focus on something that's been successful all on its own, but could use an organized effort to take it to the next level."

Different products, common interests
Calder's visit to New Zealand showed him that the New Zealand Trade Development Board's involvement and funding had been key to creating MAREX. That's why, fresh from his visit, Calder sent his white paper to then-Gov. Angus King. But Calder says he didn't get a response, speculating that his timing ˆ— the final year of the King administration ˆ— was off.

So when Gov. John Baldacci took office in 2003, Calder decided to try again, sending the white paper to the Baldacci administration in late summer of that year. The document eventually reached Jack Cashman, who recently had been named commissioner of the Department of Economic and Community Development. Cashman says he saw the concept as a way to shore up one of Maine's traditional industries.

"This is part of what I consider our neglect as a state over the last 30 or 40 years of our natural resource-based industries. I was in the Legislature for 10 of those years, so I'm guilty of it too, but we always thought, 'Well, the fish will always be here, the trees will always be here, so these industries will always be here.' And now those industries are in decline," says Cashman. "Boat building is the exception, though. The industry has been growing jobs, and it can grow them faster."

After meeting with Calder to discuss the concept, Cashman invited 25 of Maine's largest boat builders to a meeting in February 2004 to introduce the idea, figuring that any Maine boat builders' initiative would need the support of key names like Hodgdon, Hinckley in Southwest Harbor and Lyman-Morse in Thomaston. It turned out that several of those companies had been informally discussing a similar industry alliance, according to Von Vogt, but hadn't been able to make much progress on the idea.

But because they'd been considering a similar venture already, boat builders at the first meeting quickly answered one of the biggest questions about forming an industry alliance: Do the individual companies have enough in common to jointly promote the entire industry, but not so much in common that they'd be partnering with direct competitors? "Everyone's first reaction was, 'What we do is different,'" says Van Vogt. "But we saw that the common identity of all the boats built in Maine is their high quality and value, from the people who make canoes to the people who make 100-foot-plus sailboats."

Despite the common ground, the group realized that each of those niches has unique problems that any organization would need to address in order to attract members. Seeing strong representation at the first meeting from large yards like Hodgdon and Hinckley, John Kachmar, president of Wilbur Yachts in Southwest Harbor, volunteered to be on the group's steering committee as a voice for smaller boatyards. His 15-person yard builds three to five boats a year, and has marketed itself over the past 30 years primarily through word of mouth and limited advertising.

One of his goals is to make sure the organization's joint marketing efforts are within reach of smaller yards like his, which he says could see significant benefits. "If you don't have a large advertising budget, which I don't, you need to make your dollars work as best you can," says Kachmar. "This organization should work well from a marketing point of view for smaller yards, who can piggyback on what all the other yards in Maine are doing and increase the capacity for everyone."

By the end of the first meeting, a nine-member board had volunteered to begin developing a framework for what would become the MBBO. The group met regularly over the next few months, usually at Rockport Marine, and discussed potential business models, brand identity and a suitable logo. By summer, though, the group's momentum began to stall, says Kachmar. Boat yards were getting busy again, and many of the volunteers missed meetings because they were traveling.

To help prod the group forward, Cashman asked the DECD's Elaine Scott and Brian Dancause to sit in on meetings and help the group tackle issues such as business plan development. The volunteers also gave themselves a deadline to launch the MBBO at this year's Maine Boatbuilders show. "We weren't really ready to launch last [month] ˆ— I think we're two months early," says Kachmar. "But it was the perfect time to roll it out, because we had to catch all those boat builders at the show."

More than a logo
The MBBO's initial push will be marketing Maine boats outside of the state in hopes of boosting sales. That's why one of the group's first steps was to develop a logo for the organization ˆ— a stylized sailboat sketch prominently displaying the word "Maine." Going forward, MBBO members will be asked to use the "Maine Built Boats" logo on their own advertising and marketing materials to help link the name to boat makers whose own brands already are known for high quality. But the group also plans to develop joint advertising programs that would highlight Maine boat builders under the umbrella of the MBBO, to expressly pitch the attributes of the Maine-built brand.

Because Maine boat builders occupy distinct niches, giving MBBO members the flexibility to continue using their established marketing techniques makes sense to Richard Pulsifer. Pulsifer, who makes three to five wooden launches a year at his Brunswick shop, is interested in the assistance that the MBBO could offer, but is wary of ceding any key business decisions to an organization. "I don't think I can delegate anything of what I do to anybody else," says Pulsifer. "But if this will be an additional way of waving the flag for all of us, it could make us collectively ˆ— and therefore individually ˆ— stronger."

Designing a logo and running an ad campaign alone don't create a brand, says Allen of Placebrands. The industry must identify who its typical customers are, what interests them and what would make Maine stand out from other places where they could buy or build a boat. (Allen suspects that's the kind of information individual boat builders know already but must share with each other to define industry-wide characteristics.)

Then, armed with that information, Allen says the group must find creative ways to spread its message, through special events, media coverage and partnerships with complementary sectors like tourism. "You have to avoid the temptation to go to mass marketing and try to get messages to the target market in different ways," says Allen.

Anticipating a limited budget, MBBO members already have been planning that type of marketing approach. The group hopes to tie the Maine-built boats brand to existing events such as the Shipyard Cup sailboat race in Boothbay Harbor each fall. It also wants to sponsor new events, such as a yacht design symposium that brings top boat designers to Maine for a first-hand look at the state's yards.

Boat shows, however, may be the group's biggest opportunity. Companies like Hodgdon have watched the Netherlands draw crowds to its pavilion at the Dusseldorf, Germany boat show by surrounding a group of several boat builders with a display of tulips and free-flowing Dutch beer. Though few Maine boat builders could afford the $40,000 Hodgdon spends on its small booth ˆ— not to mention travel expenses ˆ— one of the MBBO's goals is to pool the resources of several members and use state assistance to subsidize a larger Maine display at major boat shows. That way, smaller boat builders could share space alongside names like Hodgdon, and the group could put on a spread of Maine lobsters and beer to draw a crowd of its own. "We make just as good a beer and just as good a boat as [the Dutch] do," says Von Vogt.

Help wanted
Before the MBBO starts throwing lobster bakes for well-heeled boat buyers, though, it has to start signing up Maine boat builders as members. On the first day of the Maine Boatbuilders Show in Portland last month, the MBBO held a morning meeting with boat builders to lay out the organization's goals. About 50 boat builders attended, according to Elaine Scott at DECD, and the MBBO founders say that most of the feedback they received from attendees was positive.

But even boat builders interested in the MBBO are still looking for details about the organization. Chip Miller and Scott Conrad, owners of Six River Marine in North Yarmouth, say they can see how an organization like the MBBO could help their 10-year-old boat yard launch a line of new production boats like their 17-foot West Point Skiff. But the pair have questions about the cost of MBBO membership and its services, as well as its approach to things like joint marketing and trade show appearances. "We'd certainly like to know what's going on in the industry, but are we going to get actively involved [in the MBBO]? We don't know yet," says Miller.

John Kachmar of Wilbur Yachts expects the group to face tough questions from boat builders ˆ— and he welcomes them. "If someone's not asking questions about what this organization will do for them, I'd be skeptical about having them as a member," says Kachmar. "Our members should be quizzical, because that's what will drive this organization forward."

Another, perhaps more important, priority will be hiring a full-time staff person to take over from the volunteer board that's been developing the MBBO in addition to their full-time jobs at boatyards. To that end, the founding members have raised more than $30,000, which will be matched by $20,000 from the DECD, to pay for an interim project manager who can manage the recruitment effort, raise more money for the organization and help a soon-to-be-elected board of directors finalize bylaws and a dues structure. (Steve Von Vogt says boatyards likely will pay dues on a sliding scale according to their size.)

Because similar organizations like MAREX are typically run by just one or two people, says Calder, choosing the right staff person to manage the organization will be crucial to the MBBO's success. Boat builders say the ideal director would have experience with both the Maine boat-building market and national and international boat shows. To handle the group's marketing, a director also should have branding expertise as well as the personal skills to offer the type of one-on-one attention that Calder received from MAREX. And the recruit needs to have the organizational and management expertise to put together a new industry association.

Though it may be hard to find someone with that precise mix of skills, the founding members of the MBBO say they're confident the momentum they've established over the last year will help whomever takes over the organization resolve the remaining organizational issues and begin touting the Maine-built boats brand. After all, says Von Vogt, the MBBO may already have accomplished one of its most difficult tasks: getting a group of boat builders to sit down and think about themselves as an industry. "At the meeting [before the Maine Boatbuilders show] I saw the CEOs of all the major boatyards in Maine in same room. That's never happened before," he says. "What's held us back in the world market is that we've never really cooperated like this."