Case Study: How to burn bridges and influence people detrimentally - update
- James van Bregt
- Oct 28, 2024
- 2 min read
October 28, 2024
This video is a perfect example of how NOT to handle PR. The marketing people at Amels/Damen Yachting thought it was smart to eject from their MYS stand the high-profile yacht industry YouTuber, ‘eSysman’. His ’The Yacht Report’ channel has 300,000 subscribers and viewing figures that most shipyards can only dream of. Worse, they ejected him and his colleagues while the camera was rolling.
In the video, ‘eSysman’ explains Amels’ beef with him. The animosity stems from recent communications exchanged, wherein the YouTuber had had the audacity to enquire into a yacht in build by Amels, involving the sanctioned and now-dissolved Monaco-based yacht manager, Imperial Yachts.
The details of the case aren’t important, but it highlights the mockery that is ‘journalism’ in the superyacht sector. Relationships between shipyards and the media are incestuous and symbiotic. Publishers can’t simply go out and charter, borrow or purchase a yacht in the same way that, let’s say, a motoring press can to review a new model.
Shipyards grant access to yachting media in exchange for glowing coverage that often borders on grovelling, or 'arslikhan' as Private Eye would put it. Similarly, most yachting media depend on shipyards for advertising and event sponsorship, making genuine criticism rare.
One veteran yacht marketer at a major shipyard once spoke about the contempt in which he held yacht industry publications. “They need our advertising dollars, so the worst criticism they’ll publish about one of our yachts might be the colour of the curtains, just to make it look like real journalism.”
This situation explains why a conflict arose between the PR and marketing teams of Amels/Damen and 'eSysman' in Monaco. Media Relations in the superyacht industry is an artifice, because there is rarely any negative or controversial press. Just ask the Italian Sea Group CEO, Giovanni Costantino, in the wake of SY Bayesian sinking, or Oceanco about how they handled (or not) the proposed dismantling of the Koningshaven Bridge in Rotterdam, to allow SY Koru to pass. When real PR is required and real journalists call, they’re all at sea.
Public relations requires a careful balance. It is not simply organising jollies for friendly journos and social media luvvies. It’s about building relationships with journalists and forging mutual trust. Making it up as you go along and going out of your way just to ‘stick it’ to someone you don’t like invariably backfires.
For Amels/Damen in Monaco, this gaffe was an unforced own goal. eSysman just stopped by for coffee; what better chance for Ms Flavell and colleagues to invite him upstairs for a friendly chat? Instead, they were petty and vengeful and have made themselves look hostile.
That’s not a good look.
** UPDATE – The video of this spat has had 252,000 views and counting…
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