DEMA’s Board of Directors Assembles for Quarterly Meeting

On August 19th, the DEMA Board of Directors gathered for their Quarterly Board Meeting to move the association forward on matters impacting the industry.  Discussion included retailer resources & retail-level research, recommended next steps for creating a major consumer marketing campaign to help all sectors of the diving industry and DEMA Show recommendations. Following approval of the consent agenda, key topics and actions from this quarter’s committee work were discussed and the following actions were taken:

Retailer Resources & Research
The Retailer Resource Committee and the Research Committee joined forces to create and present plans for a retailer survey to the Board. Discussion included methods of distribution and outreach, incentives for participants and vital information to be tracked.  The survey will be distributed in the coming weeks. Additionally, DEMA is currently undergoing test case studies to establish successful location-based marketing tactics to help attract new consumers to retail dive centers.

Industry-Wide Consumer Marketing Campaign
The Board reviewed progress on DEMA’s industry-wide diving consumer marketing campaign plans and further discussed the recommended slogan for the campaign. The group agreed that DEMA would host webinars as well as a meeting at DEMA Show to collaborate with DEMA Members and Industry businesses to help spread the campaign message in an effort to grow the industry. Under the recommendation of the consumer marketing committee, marketing agency Mob Media was invited to join the meeting to present their consumer marketing campaign proposal to the entire Board. After detailed discussion the Board agreed to move forward with the campaign under Mob Media’s guidance.

DEMA Mission Task Force Report
The progress of the mission task force to evaluate the mission statement was discussed by the Board. The task force has determined the “elements” and capabilities that will help make DEMA Members successful and is now weighing how these elements can be incorporated into DEMA’s mission and goals to help forge the future direction of the association. The task force and Board agree that a succinct and memorable mission statement that includes the importance of DEMA’s tradeshow while helping to connect Members was recommended.

DEMA Show Recommendations

The Board discussed details of a proposed trial membership for non-member registrants of DEMA Show. They then reviewed the increasing cost per net square foot being incurred by the Association due to incremental costs increases for Show venues and service contractors. After reviewing booth space pricing for similar trade shows and industry consumer shows as well as the items included in each booth package the Board voted to implement a minor price adjustment for DEMA Show 2016 with a pricing review recommended for DEMA Show 2017.  

DEMA’s Committees can be found here.  The DEMA Board will meet again just prior to November’s DEMA Show.   More information on DEMA’s Board of Directors and Bylaws is available on the DEMA website. Complete minutes from past Board of Directors Meetings are available to current DEMA Members from the Member Dashboard ofwww.dema.org.