boating

  • 238 events during a pandemic and look what happened

    Pull the parking brake, it’s a global pandemic.  Cancel events, outlaw large gatherings, and figure out how to market your goods and services in other ways.  How do brands with products that center around hands-on use engage with customers?  How do we continue to create experiences that stimulate the senses and create positive memories in unknown parameters?  We adjust, we prepare. we pop the brake, and we charge on.

    LOOK Marketing, event production, experiential, pandemic marketingPop the Brake on Events

    The parking brake was certainly pulled tight on any and all events and ‘back-up’ tactics where quickly put into play. Virtually everything virtual was ramped at warp speed and that helped fill the void…kinda.  ‘Virtual’ was the next best thing to an actual ‘event,’ and as good as technology is in replicating an experience it can not nor ever will truly replace a real, in-person experience.  The tickling of the senses causing infusion of emotions and that is what makes ‘being there’ so special. Being there is tangible, sensational, and memorable. There is no replacing a live event.

    Events generate the timeline of your life.  Events create the most vivid and lasting memories. Birthday’s, weddings, vacations, first car, concerts, games, experiences.  Our client’s products greatest attribute is providing a memorable experience. A virtual experience simply isn’t enough to move you physically or emotionally, or even remember. With more knowledge and some fresh science our clients and LOOK popped the parking brake and activated Sport Mode on our event planning and production. Committed to curating real memories. Together we committed to offering brand promise delivering, experience events. With experiential event marketing being one of LOOK Marketing’s core services and passions we worked diligently with our spirited and driven, and incredibly safety conscious clients to create safe experiences.

    A Clean Plan

    LOOK Marketing, event production, experiential, pandemic marketingThe strategy was to be very grass roots; small, limited numbers, intimate, at a distance, and be super clean. Clean in every way. A reservation system was implemented with time in-between guest visits to sanitize EVERYTHING. Our staff was diligent about wearing branded n95 masks, gloves, and we had sanitizer kiosks everywhere you looked in the footprints. And everything was outdoors.

    The events focussed on quality personal engagement. Start with personal concierge service preparing the guest for the experience prior to arrival via personal phone, text and e-mails. Customize the experience on-site to fit the guests’ expectations. Give them a well-designed, immersive experience on the product just long enough to fall involve with it. Follow the trial with answering every questions guests have and knocking down every purchase barrier that pops up.  We activated a dozen teams with tight, nimble event packages with a plan designed to maximize the experience while respecting and implementing every reasonable tactic to minimize contraction. Our 26 specialists (our Spark Plugs) on 12 different teams were ultra diligent at minimizing transmission risks.

    What Really Happened

    LOOK Marketing, event production, experiential, pandemic marketing, eventsThis event strategy worked. LOOK at the results. Our 52 on-water event activations saw a guest-to-sales conversion rate higher than any other comparable tour for the brand of the past 20 years. Our 186 on-road event activations saw total participation numbers fall short of the pre-tour goals. That’s okay. We crushed the most important KPI, sales.  The personable approach of our ultra engaging specialists and get-a-way designed on-product experiences led to direct sales of 43% ABOVE target.

    As of this writing we are packing up to produce our final consumer event of the year at Biketoberfest in Daytona. After this weekend our 2021 experiential event production total will top 238.  Thousands of experiences curated with out one known contraction.  Crisis brings out the best in creative thinking and creates opportunity for those courageous enough and prepared to charge on.

    Support events. Go to events. Do events. LOOK what can happen. . . a new memory. And remember, wash you hands.

    #lookatus

  • Job Post – Marketing Communications

    LOOK Marketing, job post, help wanted, PR, Marketing, Specialist, communications We’re looking for a marketing communications and PR professional who has passion and the magical ability to generate earned media in recreational product, lifestyle, machinery, and hospitality industries. Our ‘Spark Plug’ must be a good storyteller and have a passion for machines and experiences that move you physically and emotionally. We’re looking for a good person that will make our clients job easier and makes them say, “WOW.”

    Our PR Spark Plug will be a strong point person to help lead our earned media and special project efforts to ensure people LOOK. Based on Florida’s Space Coast, we launch marketing efforts that span across North America. The brands we represent are strong, led by smart people and solid backing and support… It’s a cool gig for a pro with white-collar smarts and blue collar work ethic and deep pride. You need to love the accelerator and leading the pack, in business and life.

    Description of the Communications & PR position responsibilities:

    • Plans, develops, and maintains promotional communications activities and projects to keep the public informed of our clients’ stories, accomplishments, programs, and point of view; to include preparation and distribution of information, content creation leadership to ensure the public message/image is aligned with client strategies.
    • Manage the client accounts – proactive, regular client communication, coordinate and execute assignments/projects, timelines and deadlines, ensuring agency exceeds KPIs and client satisfaction.
    • Manage development and implementation of strategic pr/communications plan, continuously contributing new and creative ideas that gives client and agency an edge.
    • Create mini plans for key initiatives, while keeping timelines and efforts organized through overlapping priorities.
    • Deliver top-tier results, proactive media relations, securing impactful placements.
    • Draft written materials, including press releases, memos, talking points, pitches, statements, Q&As, and more.
    • Showcases a firm understanding of social media and recreational product trends.
    • Identify and formulate partnerships with external brands to enhance client visibility and extend their PR reach, as appropriate.
    • Lead client calls guiding strategic discussions and reporting on results.
    • Present at in-person client and stakeholder meetings.
    • Ability to pitch and collaborate with all editorial mediums on earned coverage opportunities.
    • Holds established marine, powersports and lifestyle media relationships with the skills to develop new relationships using traditional and digital tools.

     Education, Experience, Knowledge and Skills Required:

    • Bachelor’s degree in PR, communications, marketing, business, or relevant focus
    • 4+ years PR, communications, or journalism, or relevant field.
    • Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, a leader and team player.
    • Proficient in Microsoft Office for Mac and Google Drive Apps
    • Possesses excellent writing skills, with strong attention to detail, AP level.
    • Detail and results-oriented with the ability to be creative while maintaining precision.
    • A proven understanding of social media platforms such with an eye for emerging trends and a high comfort level with integration and content creation.
    • Availability to travel, while juggling day-to-day tasks necessary to keep projects moving forward.
    • Must be a Passionate and Experienced water sports enthusiast
    • Strong planning and multi-project management ability.
    • Licensed, safe driver
    • Physical requirements – Able to work in non-climate-controlled environment. Able to lift 50 pounds if necessary. Safety sensitive situations.

    Cherry on top:

    • Can back up a boat trailer
    • Has a motorcycle endorsement
    • Habla español. Parle francais.
    • Well-travelled, worldly, knows stuff
    • Knows the difference between Cajun grouper and blackened salmon.
    • Has run a 5K

    Details:

    • Full-Time
    • Work Remotely: Limited, 4:1
    • Location: Melbourne, Florida
    • Salary: $55K-$65K per year
    • Profit Sharing Bonuses
    • Paid Holidays and Vacation
    • Additional financial and quality of life perks

    LOOK at us:

    LOOK Marketing is an award-winning, strategic marketing agency offering integrated communications and go-to-market services based on Florida’s Space Coast. Our team offers strategic brand building, promotional marketing efforts in the areas of storytelling, public relations, content creation, video production, retail and show merchandising design, and experiential event marketing. LOOK clients are global and local leaders in their segments, and they all sell fun… Passion rules, that’s how we roll.

    LOOK Marketing is based in Melbourne, Florida with project-based staff in 14 states and two Canadian provinces.

    Please send your pitch to [email protected]

  • How An NYC Commute Won “Best Public Relations”

    Public Relations is the marketing communications art of having people tell your story to audiences of people that you want to hear it. There’s science and best practices behind good PR and there’s also knowing what’s a questionable seed of an opportunity and fertilizing it properly to watch it grow it into a redwood forrest.  In today’s media landscape that seed of a story can turn into a forrest in hours, or even minutes.  That’s called PR gold, when your brand story goes viral.

    In the later half of last summer we were sent a seed of a PR opportunity via e-mail for our BFF client Sea-Doo watercraft. Mr. David Pike of Jersey City, NJ sent an e-mail about an opportunity to do something unique on a Sea-Doo and that the media may pick up on. Now, as the PR agency for the global, industry leading personal watercraft brand for the past 15 years, we get dozens of, “great ideas” every year about how people can promote Sea-Doo through exotic, sometimes crazy rides.  We do our due diligence on everyone of them. LOOK makes sure we don’t miss that hidden, golden nugget. Nearly all of the ‘pitches’ are passed on for various reasons; no plan, lacking physical skill, no experience, not thought out, doesn’t understand what the media are interested in, doesn’t understand brand positioning, or is simply so wacky you wonder what bar stool they were sitting on when the idea developed.

    the golden seed.

    David Pike was one of the rare idea guys that actually had a solid, and very doable idea. Pike is smart, business savvy, and simply found a better way to commute around New York City. And at the same time live the Sea-Doo Life. For years he was commuting 90-minutes each way from his home in Jersey City to his business, The New York Trolley Company, in Brooklyn, New York.  That’s an hour and a half each way or three-hours out of each day lost simply getting from one point to another.

    Pike, sick of the grind and losing his time looked at a map. He realized a straight shot across New York Harbor is less than three-miles. This is where his e-mail to us comes in. He figured out how to beat the NYC Commute by riding a Sea-Doo from his condo with a private marina in Jersey City, past the Statue of Liberty and to his office in Brooklyn. He would cut his commute down to 20-minutes door-to-door and do it with a smile as he lived the ‘Sea-Doo life’ everyday.

    It all fit. David is a good looking, young entrepreneur with a young family and figured out how to make his life better by riding a Sea-Doo to work. Great story right? Right. After a few weeks of commuting via Sea-Doo the New York Media (the biggest in the country) were, ah hum, informed of his ‘system beating’ commute. Then ABC called and the 2:57 segment aired on Good Morning America and the ‘seed’ exploded. Pike on his Sea-Doo smiling and cruising by lady liberty was picked up by The New York Post, CBS Radio, Yahoo News, CNBC, the Wall Street Journal and more.

    David’s NYC Sea-Doo Life Commute went viral…Public Relations Gold.

    Neptune Award for Best Public Relations

    At the 2020 Miami International Boat Show LOOK Marketing won two Neptune Awards. One for Best Public Relations. The Neptune Awards are presented by the Marine Marketers of America organization to celebrate the best marketing campaigns and activations in the Marine Industry. These are LOOK Marketing’s fifth and sixth Neptune Awards, and includes wins in five different marketing categories.

    Great PR includes great story telling. David Pike’s Sea-Doo life was unique, engaging and relatable for so many New Yorkers. He had a great story to tell and the media of NYC loved sharing it. It would’ve been easy for us to delete his short e-mail as ‘another dude with a crazy idea,’ yet we studied that seed, fertilized it and low and behold it grew bigger than we ever expected.  Every person and every brand has a story. Tell your story. And if you need help. #lookatus

  • LOOK at Spreading Holiday Cheer…with 300-Horsepower

    We know we have something good at LOOK Marketing when we can’t wait for the second we can share it with the world. LOOK produces content and a big portion of that is web videos. In 2015 we shot roughly 5.5 terabits of imagery and from it produced and published 86 videos for our clients, with a few of them being for our own self promotion. All of them generated engagement but there are always a few that stand out as our favorites. Today we posted a definite top three favorite, The Next Level of Present Delivery.

    This video for our main client Sea-Doo is joined by, “Lake Hawaii” for Four Winns Boats and, “The Science of Fun” as our top-three for 2015. Our friends at Fiction played major roles in the production of the later two while “SantaDoo” 2016 was kept completely in-house with four of our spark plugs making it happen.  This was shot and edited in one day and was by far the lowest budget shoot project of this year’s favorites, but arguably the most fun.

    Sea-Doo Christmas Video Production

    Behind the scenes at LOOK Marketing’s video production for Sea-Doo’s “SantaDoo” Christmas web and social video.

    Merry Christmas from LOOK and special thanks to Ted “Santa” McKercher, Elf #1 Ryan Gros, and Elf #2 Mark Quavillon for enduring wearing their costumes for over an hour in 85 degree weather on an abnormally busy day at the Grant, Florida boat ramp. #BESEEN in 2016.