Mike Nussman, President & CEO
American Sportfishing Association
ICAST Industry Breakfast
July 20, 2005; 7:30 a.m.–8:45 a.m.
Las Vegas Convention Center

Thank you, Dave. We really appreciate your vote of confidence. We’re all very fortunate to have Dave at the helm of the Board of Directors and I hope you will take a moment to thank him for his commitment to the industry. His strategic thinking and business savvy are helping us as an association get better every single day! In fact, I’d like to thank our entire board for all their efforts on behalf of the industry. Gentlemen, if you would, please stand.

Dave was dead on in his comments about ASA wearing many hats on your behalf. Through our Government Affairs program, we serve as your watchdog and your advocate. I think we’ve recently shown that through our work on excise taxes in Washington. In our Membership program, we’re your business service provider. And of course, we’re also your trade show and consumer show host. And through all of our programs and services, especially our foundations, the FishAmerica Foundation and the Future Fisherman Foundation, we’re your long-term investor.

So, when it comes to the association’s fundamental role in uniting the industry in all these efforts, that’s really a two-way street—we can’t do it without your trust and activism. Bringing together your clout and perspectives, your expertise and ingenuity, is what gives us the fuel to serve you effectively.

But, it’s actually ASA’s role as “long-term investor” that I want to emphasize today. Knowing that you have to stay focused on your business each day, we consider it a huge part of our job to keep our eye on the horizon for the trends that affect the long-term sustainability of our industry and of course, your business.

That’s why I want to tap into all the vitality that’s so apparent on that show floor next door, and spark some thought on what I consider to be the most important long-term issue for this industry: selling fishing itself. The industry has the potential to take a much broader role in selling the sport, not just the products, and these are not mutually exclusive—in fact, they work very well together.

I think if we could just take that same passion and ingenuity that goes into your innovative products and sales and apply it more broadly toward promoting fishing itself, we could truly move the needle for this sport and the industry. I think that’s precisely what we need to rally around to build our future.

What I’m getting at, of course, is tackling the participation issue. That’s certainly not a new topic, but I want to spend some time on it this morning.

We all know the basic participation trends, and there’s a feeling that we’re not headed in the right direction. Study after study tells us much the same things: growth of our sport is hindered by both perceptions and reality: perceptions that fishing is not universally appealing or accessible, and realities such as competition for time and other leisure pursuits.

But let’s take a second and look at what the experts tell us. Here we see a graph of fishing participation over the last 20 years. Now let’s look at the data. Our friends at the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association tell us fishing participation has gone like this over the period. The folks at the National Sporting Goods Association show this trend. Data from the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Survey indicates the following. And if we look at the sale of fishing licenses by the states, we see this pattern.

So what do these four lines have in common. Well, from our perspective, I think the most important thing is that none of them show an increase in fishing participation! Are these data predicting a crisis? I don’t think so, but they are showing that we’re not growing the sport upon which our livelihoods depend.

Now there are a lot of factors that may make us feel better. When it comes to outdoor recreation, we’re not alone. Participation in many outdoor sports is flat or declining. And, of course, when you look at all the different types of outdoor activities, fishing continues to be one of, if not the most popular! But where does that leave us? As an industry, we’re selling to a sport that is at best flat, and by some measures, in a slow, steady decline.

Now we all know other mature industries that have faced this challenge. What have they done? One industry response we’ve all seen is the sponsored by the milk producers, the American Dairy Association. This 10 year old campaign, which is funded by a fee on milk production, has stopped the downward trend in milk sales in this country.

And, of course, we’re also familiar with the “Go RVing” campaign which we heard about at our Sportfishing Summit several years ago. This effort goes beyond selling the specific products to sell the lifestyle itself. Does it work? Well, last year was the best year for RV sales in the past 25. That campaign is paid for by a fee on new RVs.

The National Marine Manufacturers Association has just announced its Grow Boating Initiative. Faced with flat sales, the industry has come together to endorse a $50 million program, paid for by an engine surcharge, aimed at promoting boating and growing participation. Of course, Thom Dammrich, President of NMMA, serves on our Board of Directors. Thom, congratulations on the new effort! We’ll look forward to hearing a lot more!

So given that other industries are tackling similar challenges successfully, I have to conclude that the obstacles we face are not nearly as daunting as they could be. We’re still ranked highly by Harris and other polls, our sport has about a 95 percent approval rating, and nine out of 10 people in this country have fished at least once in their lives.

The very “competition for time” factor we often cite as a challenge for our industry has certainly been considered and even capitalized on by other companies. Take Target, for example. Target offered the appeal of one-stop-shopping and made it the key part of their overall brand. They’re not only selling products, they’re selling the idea of ultra-convenience, changing the ways consumers shop.

Think about Nike, a company that not only found a way to sell its products effectively, but sells an attitude along with it. “Just do it” appeals to the natural highs of competitive sports and being physically active, even for a society that shows an alarming trend toward inactivity.

In both cases, these companies carved out a sustainable niche by turning a challenge into an opportunity. And it’s that broader selling that goes beyond specific products that gives these companies their sustainability. They’re selling a way of life.

Now the good news is when it comes to fishing, we’re not trying to put lipstick on a pig. We’ve got a great product to sell, and the challenges we face in getting our message across are far more about misperceptions than real problems. Perhaps we can even be like Target and Nike and take advantage of what appear to be our very challenges.

In terms of our industry’s opportunity, I think our long-term investments should be geared toward the family angle. Targeting avid anglers may yield the biggest profits in your next quarter, but I’m talking about marketing investments that ensure there will be more avids to sell to down the road.

We know people are finding it harder to spend quality time with their families, but we also know that they really want to. We know that two-thirds of the people who fish cite connecting with family as a primary reason for going. We know people are far more likely to go fishing if someone else initiates the trip, and being asked by a child is especially compelling.

Most importantly, we know that the vast majority of today’s anglers were introduced to fishing by a family member. This is what most often leads to anglers who adopt fishing as a lifelong pursuit. If you ask me, all this is a challenge that spells opportunity.

Interestingly enough, we’re not the only industry that’s trying to capitalize on that challenge, and that should be a source of faith. It’s easy to see that industries with a lot more advertising dollars than us—take Toyota, for example, have come up with the same focus group research as we have in regards to family time. They’re using the image of spending time with your family to sell cars!!! Heck, flying out here, I was flipping through a magazine and noticed that Cottonelle Bath Tissue is using the slogan “Looking out for the family” in their messaging. Now this is Cottonelle Bath Tissue…Looking out for the family? And we think worms are a hard sell!

Our challenge is not that we lack a “unique selling proposition.” We don’t need to recreate the sport—our “universal product,” if you will—we just need to do better at selling fishing for what it is: a mainstream activity with universal appeal.

Now I want you to work with me for a second and imagine a scenario. What if we as an industry decided enough is enough, that we need to do some long-term investing to carve out a broad, sustainable niche and really turn this participation deal around.

Imagine we came upon tens of millions of dollars to do it. Perhaps we’d start with professional research on public perceptions, our customers and potential customers, buying patterns, motivations, and lifestyle choices.

Then we develop professional branding and messaging to sell the sport, emphasizing the opportunity to build lasting memories of quality time spent with family.

We’d come up with some new ways of advertising. Together as an industry we can reach out beyond the endemic media in a way that we never could before as individual companies. Now we can get our message out into mainstream media, keeping in mind our focus on promoting fishing’s broad appeal.

Because of our research upfront, we know what’s stopping people from getting out on the water, and we create tools to make it easier for them.

We create a “one-stop-shop” Internet site that gives all kinds of information on where to fish, piers, boat launches; how to get a fishing license; calendars of community fishing events; how to find a fishing guide, and so on.

All of a sudden, gearing up to go fishing is just a few clicks away, and our future anglers will know where to go and what to do! So we make that website our tagline for all our advertising.

By now, I hope that somewhere along the way in this “what if” I’ve just presented, you’ve realized it isn’t “what if” at all. We’ve already done all this work, and it’s called our Take Me Fishing Campaign, the new and improved version of Water Works Wonders.

We’ve secured tens of millions of dollars to collectively sell the sport. We’ve used that to develop the best brand, to target advertising, and to build a comprehensive website.

We’ve strategically planned and timed our ad placements to maximize their effectiveness. Our campaign reinforces other ongoing, successful angler education programs. And, we’ve got a huge advantage over other industries because of our natural ties to the states and the outdoor community which gives us a strong, grassroots reach.

But what’s missing from the picture? A hugely significant element of our campaign is the use of our brand “Take Me Fishing” by the industry. Do you need it to sell your product? Maybe not. But do we all need it, collectively as an industry, to sell the sport and sustain a broader niche for the future? I would say absolutely yes.

Consider that Nike is so well branded that it doesn’t even need voiceovers on TV or words in their ads anymore! Imagine if McDonald’s had a thousand different versions of the Golden Arches. They might still have sold a lot of Big Macs, but clearly they would not have emerged and remained such a strong leader in the fast food industry. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you the more consistently a brand is used, the more effective it will be.

Recently we’ve done some informal research, talking to our members, about how to achieve broader involvement in the campaign from individual companies. One of the bigger issues seems to be a misperception about the versatility of the campaign elements, especially when it comes to product packaging. And there’s also a misperception that product packaging is the only way the campaign elements can be used. Manufacturers aren’t the only part of the industry that we need involved. There is a role for every segment, retail, wholesale, media, reps, you name it, there’s a place for everyone in this campaign.

Now, I can’t get into addressing every part here at the podium, but I will make you this offer: For any of you who want to learn more, just say the word, and Bruce Matthews, President of the Recreational Boating and Fishing Foundation, and I would love to sit down with you and go over just what can be done.

You know, I’ve had the privilege of being the President of the American Sportfishing Association for nearly 4 years. And one thing I’ve learned during that time is that most of you are pretty smart businessmen and women…you have to be to survive in this very competitive business.

Now…before us today, we have an opportunity to grow this business, to grow the very pie upon which all of our livelihoods depend. Congress is poised to provide over 60 million new dollars to promote fishing and boating. The Take Me Fishing brand is better focused on selling our sport. We’ve completed the necessary market research, and literally hundreds of grass roots activities are in place, ready to support our campaign.

So, it seems to me the question before us is really very simple. We can continue with the status quo…improve our products each year, make better rods, better reels, better lines, better lures, and sell them to a steadily declining group of anglers.

Or, we can decide to grow the sport. Because I am certain that if we as an industry collectively take the skills and commitment each of you have in selling your individual company’s product and apply that same business-like approach to the job of selling fishing, we will grow the sport, and we will grow our industry.

Ladies and gentleman, thank you for your time this morning and for your support. Have a great show!