Open Letter to USHGA Members

As president of a creative agency that develops identities and brands
for companies and products, I probably qualify as a branding
professional. As a newcomer to flying and to USHGA I may benefit from
a more detached perspective than many long time members. My thoughts
on the renaming question are based on less information than I would
ask for from a client, however, so I may be missing things. Perhaps I
can at least provoke some discussion.

As some of the arguers have suggested, this is a branding and
marketing issue. The question is not do paraglider pilots feel left
out, or was hang gliding here first, or do hang gliders represent a
larger percentage of the membership, or is there some cost associated
with changing the name. These things are irrelevant. The question is,
what will help us market our sport and our organization, help us
build the revenue that makes all our organizational activities
possible, and help us grow our ranks going forward?

Recent USGHA financials, which are available to members on the
website, show a drop in revenue of almost 10% between 2002 and 2003.
The fact that net income stayed almost flat is not material; the
numbers show normal fluctuations in operating expenses, and if you
adjust for a single $25,000 grant that was made in 2002 and not
repeated in 2003 the organization was less profitable in 2003.
Perhaps more significant, according to the introductory letter on the
website revenue first reached $1,000,000 in 1996, which means that
revenue for both 2002 and 2003 is roughly flat with 1996. (Financials
from 1997 to 2001 are not posted, so I can't comment on the
intervening trends.)

The financials are a key barometer to the health of our organization.
Even ignoring the year over year decline, the fact that we are at the
same revenue level as 1996 means that in real dollars we are slipping
downhill. If there was a higher peak between 1996 and 2002, then we
are in worse shape. This means that some important things, I think
including our brand, are not working well for us and we need to make
some changes.

It's easy to see that our membership base drives our revenue. More
members means more dues, more magazine subscriptions, more sales of
goods. Expenses do not rise with membership as fast as revenue; it's
easy to tell the printer to print more magazines. Membership revenue
dropped in 2003, which means we lost some members we had the year
before.

If we've been stagnant since 1996, this must also mean that the hang
gliding membership has dropped since then, because paraglider pilots
now make up a healthy percentage. The aging of the hang glider pilot
population and the difficulty of attracting new pilots to the sport
have been widely acknowledged. To me, as a recently converted
non-pilot, it's not hard to understand. The image of hang gliding in
the non-flying public is still one of over-the-top insane risk.
Paragliding in its own early days may have been just as dangerous,
but for whatever reason it didn't acquire such an evil public
reputation. I believe this difference in image contributes to the
greater growth of paragliding. Even people like me, who have
participated extensively in other "extreme" sports, often gravitate
to paragliding. As a non-pilot, I was very aware of some early hang
gliding fatalities years ago, and I never heard of any paragliding
accidents.

Again, which of the two is actually more dangerous is irrelevant.
We're talking about the perception of our brand. If I am right about
the difference in public image, then we need to consider how we can
make use of the relatively positive image of paragliding in our brand
going forward. The best result for the organization will help all of
us on both kinds of wings.

There are times when a rebranding is a good idea. I think we might be
at one of those times. I believe a new name will help us.

All that said, I didn't like the staid quality of the names proposed
in the poll. There are better possibilities; of the write-ins I like
two. One is Paragliding and Hang Gliding USA. The emphasis on
paragliding plays to the more positive image of paragliding in the
public's eye and the growing ranks of paragliders. Some people who
are drawn to paragliding will become bi or switch to hang gliding as
they learn more about it. Getting people into either kind of flying
by making us more attractive will help all of us.

The other one I like is The American Free Flight Association. I
appreciate that that could be construed to include more things, and
it doesn't describe us as well, but for that same reason it also gets
us away from sounding like a hang gliding club. It may be easier to
get strong PR results with a name like this.

I can hear the yelling. It doesn't matter if we are or have always
been a hang gliding club. We're talking about how to present
ourselves to the non-flying public in a way that will help us. As a
hang gliding club is categorically not the right way.

I think we need to do more external PR. Typical commercial promotions
are likely to be ruled out by insurance issues; a radio station will
not be able to give away tickets for free hang gliding lessons. But
there are many ways to approach great PR.

There is a wider following out there for our sport if we can educate
people about it. PR over time could also change the image of hang
gliding among non-pilots. But PR, while cost effective, costs money.
The question we need to ask now is, what will get us more of that
soon, the most effectively. Call me names, but I think a name that
de-emphasizes hang gliding is the right direction.

James Bradley
USHGA 81591
Chase Design Group
www.chasedesigngroup.com
james@chasedesigngroup.com