Jun
25
Here’s a little something from one of the other industries whose tradeshow I work on. The ASR (Action Sports Retailer) show serves the surf, skate, moto, swim and related lifestyle industries. Think Quiksilver, Billabong, Volcom, Reef, Vans and you’ll have a good idea of the companies represented. VERY different vibe from Interbike, I gotta tell you. It’s 2 times a year in San Diego for the Spring/Summer and Winter seasons, being a very fashion and apparel oriented industry.
So every year the skateboard industry association promotes “Go Skateboarding Day” - this year it was last Saturday the 21st of June. It’s supposed to be a day to celebrate skateboarding and just plain get out and skate for the day. Around the country there are tons of events planned and it’s a big deal in the industry.
One of my fellow bike/train commuters is the publisher of one of the big skateboarding magazines and I was asking him this morning how Go Skateboarding Day went across the country. He told me about this:
Call it ballsy, call it stupid - it’s pretty amazing how he managed to stop traffic like that on one of the major freeways in Southern California with just him on his skateboard. It’s almost like critical mass, but with just one person. I have a suspicion that if he were on a bike instead of a skateboard, cars would have been flying by him honking their horns and shaking their fists at him. Sort of like the study that showed how helmetless riders get more room from passing cars, maybe they saw this guy as more vulnerable and gave him space to do his…thing. Or maybe, being SoCal, many of the drivers were skaters ( or parents of skaters), too.
Now, what did this achieve for the image of skating among the general public? Well… that’s debatable, to put it mildly - much like the critical mass argument in the bike world. How about the effect of this ride among the core target audience that the employer of the skater markets to? That was probably a marketing home run. Reminds me of the Specialized video from a few months back - except their’s was faked.
Just a taste of something from outside the bike industry.
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That’s just crazy!!