Do These Stunts Really Promote Diving?

Sure, the diving industry needs all the help it can get to keep current divers purchasing and lure new people into the sport, but these two recent scuba-focused promotions seem a bit cheesy.

In March, Intercontinental Hotels suspended a pair of divers off the Sony Building in Tokyo to promote new luxury resorts on the Japanese island of Okinawa. The stunt, orchestrated by ad agency McCann Erickson, Tokyo, has two stuntmen performing an “air-diving ballet” high in the air several times a day for four days. They’re supposed to represent the diving offered at Intercontinental’s Manza Beach and Ishigaki resorts. Oh yes, hanging off a high-rise really gives one the sense of what it’s like to dive underwater – especially when they reach their maximum depth with a plunge onto hard concrete.

At the other end of the spectrum is this effort to attract divers with a question about as difficult as that famous Groucho Marx question, “Who is buried in Grant’s tomb?” British newspaper News Shopper teamed up with Avago Divers of Kent, England, to offer a free dive lesson to the first five people who can answer this question: “Calypso was the name of the ship used by which famous French diver?” Why not just offer a free lesson? That would get attention.