Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/570649
October 2015 | Boating Industry | 47 www.BoatingIndustry.com /// Market Trends /// ACCESSORIES TREND TOWARD COVERAGE, COLOR INTEGRATION Marine Accessories Corporation is the parent company of Monster Tower, XTreme Tower Products and Great Lakes Boat Top Company. Based on trends in water sports, the company saw an opportunity to integrate its bimini prod- ucts with its wakeboard towers. The Flip Bimini, a bimini top that attaches to a wake- board tower, released at IBEX this year. The bimini goes over the top of the tower and operates on a mechanism where customers pull two knobs and the top flips forward and deploys down. The bimini can be mounted and booted against the tower when it's undeployed. The Flip Bimini will be sold through both Great Lakes Boat Top Company and XTreme Towers. Biminis on wakeboard towers are a huge trend Rey- enger said is appearing in the water sports segment, but that Marine Accessories Corporation is putting its bimini tops over the towers whereas other companies have placed them underneath, which interferes with speaker mounts, lights bars and any other accessories consumers may want on the tower. "In today's market, people just want coverage," said Reyenger, "[and] you want to have clearance of your tow rope from the bimini top. We designed them especially for our towers, and I would say today that, especially with our packages, probably 80 percent of the Monster Towers that we sell are going with bimini tops on them." Reyenger added that whenever the company designs a new tower for an OEM, the company works together with the OEM to create a design that looks like the bimini is a part of the tower. "They're integrated into the tower, it's not just an af- terthought for us," said Reyenger. Integration is a key aspect to the design of wakeboard towers. Marine Accessories Corporation is finding that color-matched products are extremely appealing to con- sumers, and so the company invested heavily in powder coat operation this year, which gives Marine Accessories Corporation the control and ability to offer its customers different color options that match gelcoats in their ves- sels. The company is also integrating new materials, such as fiberglass and upholstered panels, that match gelcoats and boat colors. "It really kind of integrates more with the boat in terms of the way it looks, the way it feels. The people on the inside of a boat looking at the inside of a tower can now see an upholstered kind of look like they see in the rest of their boat," said Reyenger. For more information about integration and other trends in boat interiors, read our Market Focus article on p. 50. and the progression of Malibu and the inboard segment is making it very appealing for people who before would have never even considered it." A social sport Wakesurfing's popularity is largely attributed to how social the activity allows riders to be: Riders are closer to the boat and the extra weight of multiple people is ben- eficial not only for the crowd of friends who watch a rider show off his or her skills, but for achieving a maximum wave. It's not surprising then that the water sports segment takes a social approach to marketing its products. Nautique took this concept to heart with the release of the G-series, which was done with a release party and a live webcast for Internet users. "We looked at it in a way to say 'Let's get a group of customers [together who are] excited about our Nautique product and show them what's new, build that excitement and let that spread throughout the world," said Meloon. "We reached customers that hadn't been in our fold before." Marine Accessories Corporation has ramped up its own social media efforts through video contests, offering rendezvous with customers to get them socially together on the water and more. "We're trying to actually build a community out there through our social media efforts and our following with our Monster Towers," said Reyenger. For Tige, social media is an area where the company is very aggressive and aims to have a large impact because of its ability to build the brand up in the long term with a younger demographic, which Gutierrez says helps the industry grow that fan base from the very beginning. "We tailor our message to those different areas of social media and those different demographics to start the long-term plan to build a culture and to build a following so that people can identify with who we are as a brand," Gutierrez said. Wakeboarding and tubing are still very popular among consumers, according to most manufacturers.