What makes a pro marketable and what are the variables which contribute to that popularity which then transforms into sales?
When a kid stands in front of a series of decks in a skate shop, we must assume that they either know what they wish to buy or haven’t a clue. The choice is either spontaneous or on the contrary, well thought out.
If the choice is spontaneous, we must also conclude that the purchase is empty of emotional engagement. A kid will buy a Plan B just as they would buy a Santa Cruz or a Braille. They would like skateboarding “as a whole”, with equal feelings shared between all brands.
If I had to guess, I would say that this is the purchasing behaviour either of a very young skater starting out or of a much older and more detached skater well past the stage of having a “favourite skate company”. It might also be the behaviour of an occasional skater.
The emotions going into this type of purchase would be the graphics, the shape of the board and perhaps “on the spot influences” such as the opinion of their accompanying friends, parents or of the skate shop owner. There might also be practical factors such as the price of the board.
But in the case where a skater does have clear preferences between brands, we must then assume that this preference has developed over time and through exposure to the brands.
Speaking from experience, I feel it fair to say that we enter the most murky areas of consumer behaviour that a marketeer could ever have the misfortune to work with: Why indeed did my kid self like Powell much more than he liked SMA? What was it about Mad Circle that didn’t appeal to me and why was DC never a shoe I wanted to wear despite it being endorsed by many skaters I adored?
Is skateboarding an industry that functions as a “thunderbolt moment” where 2 people fall in love in an instant in a silent crowd?
Does repeated advertising count for anything, or do skaters just like who they like without there being a clear explanation?
Is the original Blind logo so cool of a concept that it generates a brand following regardless of who rides for the team?
Is it all about “grabbing” the kid when they are the most impressionable, at a pivotal time in their skateboarding journey? Could it be that there is a peak time in a skater’s life – somewhere within the first 2 years when they are most liable to fall in love with certain brands or aesthetics?
Are all other subsequent advertising efforts a waste of resources as consequence, similar to a fertilization process which can only be done once?
Thinking back on my feverish flipping through the pages of Thrasher in the 90s, the ads by the skateboard company Poor House particularly struck a chord within me, as did the ads for Naked skateboards – an equally “under the radar” company. Yes, I would have bought Poor House and Naked in a heartbeat without knowing anything about their team. The ads just spoke to me.
Before the age of the internet and the access to information, a kid had much more limited engagement with skateboard companies. Such questions as these would have been more easily answered. You learned about brands through an ad in one of the 2 main skate magazines, you got ahold of a skate video or you were lucky to catch a live skate demo. One of the 3 variables or a combination of the 3 created brand following.
Nowadays, the variables have exploded in many directions: there are the various video/social media platforms, the many more available demos, the international contest circuits, the websites of the skate brands themselves, the full-length videos that they make, the paper magazines, the webzines, to a certain extent gender politics, and even the sponsorships and associations with non-skateboard brands.
Who is to guess how a kid chooses their favourites these days?
The more we think about these questions, the clearer it seems that we do not (and perhaps can not) possess the answer to any of them.
In theory at least, one might well be a “goth” skate kid clad in black and particularly fall in love with the skate style of a clean-cut pro skateboarder with a button-up shirt. This appreciation might be dependent on something the pro said in an interview, a certain trick they performed, a song they liked, a contest they won (or didn’t enter) or a band T-shirt they wore. Again, who is to know?
And yet despite all these questions and this gaping “non-knowledge”, skateboarding still follows a regulated motion of behaviour that seems to indicate clear answers. The industry traditions of skateboarding still count among them regular advertising, placing in contests and organizing demos.
I’m in no way saying that these should not be, but I am suggesting there isn’t the absolute knowledge that they serve a purpose.
Pros put out Instagram and Tik Tok content without the assurance of a direct correlation between this and board sales. Do we even know whether or not a slappy on a curb carries the same emotional trigger in the mind of a purchaser as a hard trick down some stairs?
Did my teen self like Jamie Thomas more because he ollied down the Leap of Faith or did he still think Jason Adams was cooler for just cruising around?
As we move closer to the generalized acceptance of a contest circuit for skateboarding, we seem to be doing so without empirical knowledge of how much (if at all) it benefits the board sales of the professional skater.
For all we know, these much-deserving pros might gain just as much traction by early-grabbing off a jump ramp in their cul-de-sac dressed as Jack Sparrow.
Perhaps on the contrary the first place on the podium does mean something. And maybe anything past the 4th place doesn’t move board sales at all?
Or perhaps sixth place at Tampa generates more sales than first place at Street League? Etc.
Popularity in skateboarding has always played a meaningful part, either for the tricks, the clothes, the brands or the pros. We have come to accept and enjoy it because it does contribute to the dynamic movement of skateboarding and its pursuit for innovation.
Yet as much as we acknowledge and recognize it, we have no clear explanations why Chad Muska is popular one year, why pressure flips came and went and came back, or how any of this explains board sales.
We do not know with absolute certainty which is the communicative language of skateboarding that plants the seed of interest in the mind of the young customer.
As pros continue to fall left and right on the hard tarmac attempting the most dangerous stunts, they do so with the assumption that this is the language that speaks to the kid in the skate shop.
Why? Perhaps because there is little else to believe.