The Sea Tow Foundation is showcasing the winners of the 2023 National Boating Safety Awards via individualized blog posts that answer specific questions posted to each winning company.

Boating Magazine, which is owned by Firecrown Media, won the 2023 National Boating Safety Award in the category of Top Marine Media Outlet.

1. Please briefly describe your winning entry and tell us about the process of creating/launching it. Did it take a lot of planning or was it something that came together fairly quickly?
   
   

The video “Penny Wise, Lifetime Foolish” was an effort to dramatize a very real shortcoming among new boaters in terms of boating safety. It springs naturally from parents’ understanding that kids grow quickly and buying clothes that are much too large is a common practice to optimize the expenditure. But, in boating, a life jacket that doesn’t fit, doesn’t do the job it was designed for and the money is wasted. As a result, children’s lives can be in danger.

2. What inspired your company to promote boating safety? Was this the first time doing so or has there been previous boating safety promotions?

Boating Magazine and its sister publications, Yachting, Cruising World, Sailing World and Saltwater Sportsman have been engaged with the U.S. Coast Guard and Water Sports Industry Association for over a decade to produce content that promotes best practices in boating safety. Since we began our work, the USCG has congratulated us for doing our part to decrease boating deaths.

3. What does winning this award mean for your company?

The recognition associated with this award raises the esteem and importance of our project’s efforts and encourages all stakeholders to continue in our work to make boaters safer.

4. What was a key takeaway you received as a result of working on this project or campaign?

Some of our audience commented that the ill-fitting, cheap life jackets on the kids in the video were just not realistic and this was actually reassuring to our team’s effort. But, our goal was to highlight that behavior and offer a dramatic lesson on the importance of correcting it to reach the boaters we’ve seen and know who have fallen prey to the misconception that “kids will grow into their life jackets,” they have to fit NOW.