Something in the world of floating have you stumped?
Show Highlights
Most float centers have people float naked as the day they were born, but most ads and promotional videos and stuff show floaters in bathing suits. What’s up with that? Well, obviously fully nude images on Facebook or something will probably get flagged, so how do you deal with this situation? Nude models? No?
Ashkahn and Graham break down the problem, their own frustrations with it, and how they’ve dealt with it at Float On.
Listen to Just the Audio
Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)
Ashkahn: Welcome everyone.
Graham: Hey, welcome back if you’ve been here before too.
Ashkahn: Yeah and if you haven’t, welcome for the first time.
Graham: So, uh, that’s Ashkahn over there.
Ashkahn: Yup this is me.
Graham: Today’s question is-
Ashkahn: Yeah what is it Graham, what is it?
Graham: Yeah, there we go. I was just waiting. I was just going to kind of give you more cues. Today’s question is, “I’m about to start doing some more Facebook ads. What’s your opinion on people wearing bathing suits in a float tank on ads?”
Ashkahn: The age old question.
Graham: Age old.
Ashkahn: Since I guess the era of photography.
Graham: I mean, I’m an age.
Ashkahn: And float tanks. Basically people get into float tanks naked.
Graham: Yeah.
Ashkahn: But you don’t want to just put out nudie photos in your advertisement-
Graham: Necessarily, you don’t necessarily want to put out nudie photos.
Ashkahn: Some places probably won’t even let you put out nudie photos in your advertisements.
Graham: So there’s this sense I think where you do actually want to show people floating because you want to show what? The float tanks are big? You kinda want to show someone’s whole body as well. Like I think sometimes the concern is that people who have never heard of floating feel like floating is done in these little capsules and people think it’s really claustrophobic. And so being able to show just that an entire human can fit in there and stretch out and it’s pretty spacious, is a nice way to advertise for the float experience.
Ashkahn: And usually people hire very tiny models when they-
Graham: Yeah like five feet is the-
Ashkahn: They get the shortest person they can and they put them in the float tank and use that for photography.
Graham: As a side, I was looking at the Pop Up Float, you know Peter Marsh’s tank. Peter Marsh is, I don’t know, like seven feet tall or something, he’s one of the tallest people in the float industry. The ads for it have him standing next to the float tank. It kind of makes it look like really small and it was like, it’s the first time I think where I realized the opposite of that. Like if you don’t put something small next to a float tank and you put a giant it seriously, it makes it look a little more diminutive. So yeah. Okay, end of anecdote.
Ashkahn: Okay.
Graham: So the instinct to do that totally makes sense. Show that float experience and have you know a person inside being able to represent it. And I also really don’t like misrepresenting the float and having people wear stuff inside.
Ashkahn: Yeah, it’s always weird. It always weird to me to see bathing suits on people in pictures of float tanks.
Graham: So we’ve kind of gone two routes. We’ll take pictures and I guess both of them are the same route, which is we don’t like showing bathing suits on people. Along with this, I guess it’s also worth mentioning, there’s another feeling that not only are bathing suits used, but it’s often like bathing suit models, both male and female that are used in the floating experience rather than kind of more common everyday body types. So that’s maybe mixed in here too. Either way, those are both things, showing bathing suits, showing just models are kind of things that Float On has tended to stay away from. Instead we either go the closeup route, you know, show the face of someone floating and stuff like that. You can even figure out ways to do some nice foreground background stuff where you can kind of show the length of their body and make sure you can see their face and their toes without actually showing the nudity. And illustration is the other way that we’ve gone about it.
So actually kind of illustrating not too graphic, but kind of the representation of human beings floating without needing to actually take pictures of nudies of different people in the tank itself and put those out there. But you can also blur things out. I mean even that like Mental Floss, they did a video at a center and it’s one of my favorite videos for that reason. It’s like kind of a bigger guy who’s going into float and one of the mental floss guys, and he just gets straight buck naked and goes in and they blur it out. They blur out his junk and stuff. But it’s very obvious that he’s both not a model and not wearing any kind of clothing on his body. And that actually makes me really happy. So I’d say even blurring it out is better than showing a bathing suit in my opinion.
Ashkahn: Yeah and it’s just hard. I mean we’ve shown bathing suits before just because there’s only so much you can do. Like the morning news segment comes in and you don’t have time to orchestrate a like tasteful, certain camera angle or something like that. They just want to show two seconds of someone.
Graham: Like we’re going to be wearing this bathing suit. Is that okay? Great. Don’t care.
Ashkahn: And you’re like, “Okay.” So I think it’s impossible to completely avoid in certain situations like that, but if you’re creating the media and you’re spending time doing-
Graham: Yeah for like Facebook ads for example.
Ashkahn: Yeah. Then you have a decision and you have the ability to find some creative ways of not showing bathing suits but not having things be distasteful I guess.
Graham: And a couple of nice things come if you managed to do that. One is that you don’t have to put up with a bunch of questions of people asking if they should bring their bathing suits in or just bringing them anyway, and sometimes floating with bathing suits you don’t realize until afterwards and they have like a plastic bag with swim trunks in and you’re like, “Oh you don’t need to wear those.”
Ashkahn: You’re alone in there.
Graham: I actually think there’s something kind of appealing about just being totally by yourself. I think the same kind of thing that appeals to being in the float tank in general also appeals to the idea of being just completely yourself, without that clothing attachment and stuff like that in there too. So I don’t know, I think it just advertises as both a more true experience and maybe a more pure float experience leaving out the bathing suit.
Ashkahn: Yeah, I mean so, good.
Graham: Alright, if you want to come host the show with me, just go to floattanksolutions.com/new cohost and we’ll be a filling the slot and taking some applications over the next week.
Ashkahn: Yeah that sounds good. Sounds great.
Graham: Alright everyone, thanks for listening, floattanksolutions.com/podcast is actually where you want to go to send us questions. But definitely do both.
Ashkahn: Who’s messing up hosting now huh? Not even giving the right website.
Graham: All right, bye everyone.
Recent Podcast Episodes
When DON’T you Feel Like Floating? – DSP 275
Graham has Juliet on the podcast today since Ashkahn is doing some post-Conference traveling.
The duo talks about times when floating just doesn’t feel like a good idea, which is something they have a bit of disagreement about. Juliet shares her experiences being cautious of her experiences in the tank and how she tends to have to be more mindful of when she floats.
How do you Handle Changing Memberships? – DSP 274
This year at the Float Conference, Derek hosted a marketing forum and took questions that he wanted to share with everyone here.
This episode focuses on how Float On handles memberships, including tiered memberships and how to gracefully transition from one type of membership to another.
Are Vapor Barriers a Good Idea for Float Centers? – DSP 273
You can tell when Graham starts to miss Ashkahn when he makes a soundboard made up of sound clips from previous episodes just to have Ashkahn do another intro.
Jake and Graham break down barriers in this episode. Vapor barriers, that is. These tools are a little confusing in the construction world and their efficacy is hotly debated in just regular construction, never mind the demands that a float center has, especially in regards to moisture protection. Fortunately, Graham and Jake know a thing or two about a thing or two and explain what vapor barriers are, how they work, and what the source of contention is.
What to Consider with Plumbing in a New Float Center – DSP 272
Graham and Jake talk about the confusing world of plumbing for your float center. There are any number of unpleasant surprises that can come about when planning the water lines to showers, getting floor drains in place, and making sure everything lines up how it’s supposed to. If the sewer main is too deep or not where you think it is, it can add a significant amount of cost to your build out just to get floor drains installed. Fortunately, the guys have some useful tricks to help mitigate costs and plan accordingly.
Should I use Spray-in Insulation for my Float Center? – DSP 271
Graham and Jake are still in a sans Ashkahn world at Daily Solutions, but they’re not letting it harsh their mellow.
The guys are talking about the different types of spray-in insulation today. It’s a pretty common material in construction and it can be a fantastic insulator for float centers, if you get the right type.
Jake and Graham go over the differences between open cell and closed cell insulation and why, specifically, float centers should avoid open cell insulation. They also provide some excellent pointers on the materials themselves and good conversations to have with a contractor regarding insulation.
Latest Blog Posts
Oh, the Questions You’ll Hear!
When you run a float tank center, you’re going to get asked a lot of questions. Do I float naked? Can I drown? Is this sanitary? Many of these are easy to answer: It’s recommended. Not without a conscious, and determined effort. Yes! There are some questions, however,...
Happy TANKSgiving (Giving Gifts to Monthly Members)
Monthly memberships are an important way to ensure that your float tank center has a consistent, if not dependable, amount of business.
While pricing structures for memberships vary widely across the industry, we’re focusing less on the strategy of what to charge and looking more at the benefits we’re actually offering. Once we’ve established a solid offering, then we can revisit pricing.
Running a successful monthly membership program takes more than just charging customers and making sure they use their credits. With a little creativity, we can find ways to increase engagement.
Your Flow Meter May Be Inaccurate (and what to do about it)
Float tanks tend to use a lot of parts borrowed from the pool and spa industry and, whenever that happens, it’s always important to question whether that pool part works accurately with our salt water solution. We’ve recently gained some insight into that question on...
The Float Tour Blog Roundup!
The following is our collection of links to the all of the Float Tour blogs. My chronicling of our adventure, highlighting all of you out there.
Thank you for the memories.
