Op-Ed: It's Time for American Maritime to Tell Its Story With Conviction

 

The following is an excerpt from longtime PR executive Ben Pinnington's new book, "Making Waves: PR Strategies to Transform Your Maritime Business (2nd ed.)," available November 4 in paperback and e-book format.

The time has come for maritime in the United States and globally. We can no longer hide behind the excuse of seablindness as to why our industry doesn’t punch its weight in the arenas of politics and the media.

The maritime industry has for too long been drowning in its own inertia, happy out of the spotlight, however self-defeating. Today, maritime issues are front and center in the political agenda as President Trump vents his anger at China’s astonishing ascent over the last twenty years to becoming the world’s leading maritime superpower. To his credit, President Trump grasps the importance of maritime, certainly to national security, more than any president in living memory. This administration is prioritizing shipbuilding and is pumping $5 billion alone into the sector via the Big Beautiful Bill. Allied nations and foes are having to reset their maritime policy as a result. The challenge now is for the maritime sector to harness its higher profile to press its case, recalibrate shipbuilding in the U.S. and allied nations, and drive desperately-needed recruitment while at the same time pushing back against the more damaging policy ideas, shaping them into something much more exciting.

Having well-planned professional PR and communications campaigns is critical to navigating this new high profile. The industry must do itself justice and tell its story with conviction; otherwise, the vacuum will be filled by misinformation and negativity. We have all heard the negative descriptions of maritime as a conservative-run, polluting, secretive dinosaur industry. We just cannot allow that narrative to run unchallenged. Yes, there are shortcomings, but we are a progressive global industry of innovation, steeped in centuries of exploration and driven by passionate people. And that is a PR battle as much as anything. If the industry does not speak up and champion itself with professional, planned, strategic public relations, another industry or critic will fill the vacuum. This is the era of dynamic, eye-catching communication – those who use social media and the media the most skillfully win. Maritime cannot and must not be left behind in the battle for headlines and hearts and minds.

These are exciting times in maritime. Innovation is flourishing, and the industry is finally embracing technology like AI, autonomous ships and electric vessels, as this new book explores in the new maritime tech chapter. These are the stories we have to promote to the mainstream to attract talent and investment into the industry. More widely, a shake-up is long overdue for the shipbuilding industry, which has for too long languished in a morass of crippling cost and time overruns in the U.S. and allied nations. An MR tanker in the U.S., for example, can cost up to five times the market rate in Asia, according to BIMCO. So the administration should be commended for making shipbuilding a priority right from the beginning of President Trump’s second term. Bringing in an engineering genius like Elon Musk, who revolutionized the wasteful rocket industry to help oversee procurement, seemed promising. But now Musk has acrimoniously left the administration, could another battle-hardened troubleshooter from industry be brought in to recalibrate shipbuilding? Allied nations could follow suit. Maritime deserves the best minds who think differently, dream big and do big.

My plea is for maritime firms not to play at communication. This book contains some of the toolkit necessary to use PR to grow your business. I just ask professionals to understand that PR is about reputation – building it, protecting it and growing it. It is a slow-burn process to win people over. The hard reality is that many maritime firms do not have the reputation they deserve. They are trapped in repeating the same year with minimal growth and average marketing. However, if you communicate effectively – for example, through LinkedIn, e-newsletters and in the abundant maritime press like The Maritime Executive – your reputation will rise. And research has shown that with a stronger reputation, your business is more likely to grow, by  recruiting and retaining the best people, achieving higher sales, charging higher fees, operating more easily outside of your domestic market, building higher-quality commercial partnerships, securing lending at preferential rates, agreeing better terms with suppliers, and having journalists and stakeholders give you the benefit of the doubt in a crisis. There is much to play for, and with maritime firmly in the headlines, there is no better time to ramp up your communications.

Ben Pinnington is the founder of international public relations business Polaris Media. Having founded Polaris in Liverpool, UK in 2011, he expanded it to Chicago in 2022 where he now lives with his family. He works with businesses worldwide, including shipyards, ports, shipping lines, barge operators, class societies, ship registries, equipment makers and trade bodies. A married father of two, Ben is a trained newspaper reporter, a member of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR), and is Vice President of the Chicago Propeller Club.