Why We Don't Have Advertisments
I am having a bitter day. Maybe the teen angst has finally taken over my soul, or maybe it has something to do with a rather unpleasant telephone conversation I had last night with a certain friend’s psycho bitch girlfriend in which she spelled out for me how she planned to control his life. Either way, I’m not in the best of moods. It just so happens that the Buyer’s Guide Issues of both Transworld and Snowboarder would arrive at my house when I hate the world. I don’t really feel like thinking about how much I despise all other females, so instead I will take my aggression out on these piles of glossy paper.
Now, I don’t want to trash the magazines, (although particular columns do continuously cause nauseate me at their arrival on my door step), because I someday hope to sell out to the corporate sport of snowboarding, and get paid to work for some such publication. Instead, because we have no sponsors, and Flake Zine, who did it for two years, hasn’t put out an issue in three, I am going to trash the advertisements.
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Lets start with the Panasonic ad. This ad depicts a "rad" inliner brah doing a "rad" grind while conveniently listening to his Panasonic CD player, which I’m assuming is playing watered down hip hop or the Suicide Machines. Pretend my name is Snowboard Brah, and I’m looking at this ad saying, wow, that CD should probably be skipping right now, but it’s not! Please Mr. Panasonic, take my money, and then I’ll bend over so you can do what you’d like with me. Yeah. What really confuses me is why a company, who probably spends a good percent of it’s yearly revenue on advertising, rather than paying the three year olds who make their product in South Korea, would put a rollerblader in their ad in a snowboard magazine. That must appeal to a good 8-10% of the snowboard market. I haven’t gone to college for six years for this sort of thing, but common logic tells me the goal in advertising is to play to the higher percentage. My advice, stick to Rolling Stone and Spin and stay out of the snowboard industry, because even though extreme sports are popular this week, it’s a passing fad and snowboarders are stereotyped as poor and dirty anyway. |
Now we move on to the Morrow ad. This ad is, surprise surprise, a sequence of Todd Richards doing the "wet cat" 900 mctwist. This company has no money to spend on an advertising budget because whatever they didn’t lose when they went public, they pay Todd to be in every single ad. This would be why they chose to design an ad based on the same concept as, well, ever other ad they’ve ever made. This makes me, Snowboarder Brah, want to buy a Morrow snowboard because Todd rides them, and he’s so personable, which I think is the intent of the unrelated quote about buying a car and losing the key. My advice, next time, pick a trick that Todd learned in one try, because the fact that this one took him two just isn’t very impressive.
Next victim will have to be the K2 ad. In this ad, Kung Fu Ninja, Rob Kingwell throws an air punch at the camera, clearly displaying his US Open Champion ring, while on the adjacent page, does a sizable method, which is nowhere near the east coast or the Open, and instead appears to be an ESPN Freeride. Now the money maker, running across the page reads "Rob Kingwill 1ST PLACE US OPEN Bigger than the Olympics because Terje was there". What they conveniently forgot to mention is that Terje was riding like shit, and Kinger didn’t actually qualify into the finals, instead he snuck in on the tails of the Terje extention. This ad works for me on so many levels, first of all, Kinger is so cute, so as my hoochie side, Snowboard Betty, I now want to buy an A Star from K2, even though, by the US Open Time, Rob was on his 14th one, as they kept breaking. As the rad Snowboard Brah, my only goal in life is to win the Open, and since, once in 16 years the winner was on a K2, that’s obviously the board for me. My advice, don’t try to be funny in your ads, or if you do, at least spend a short period of time researching your funniness, as cynical little dorks like me will pick apart your ad if you don’t.
| The last advertisement I will release my bitterness on to is the Eternal Snowboarding one. I’m not quite sure what Eternal is, but judging by the brand names running around the page I assume it is a catalog which I will soon be receiving, as I am on every mailing list in existence. This ad, other than the brand names, is a bunch of light blue circles with important information like their www address and a Silence Logo. This right here, is what is causing this rant. Since nobody read the last issue of Yo Beat, I’m assuming I should restate that Silence went out of business. There’s good marketing for a company that doesn’t exist. In fact, I’d call that marketing brilliance. My advice, wait until the day you send your add the to the magazine to add the snowboard logo, because with today’s ever changing company roster, you never know who will go next. I predict Burton, or maybe Salomon. |
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Since I complained for so long, I guess I should put effort into finding an ad I like. Hang on. Here it is, the Reef ad that not only has a bikini clad woman, but a picture of Terje’s feet, in which you can see that he actually wears his signature boot. No wait, since nobody seems to perceive sarcasm, I’m being negative again. Hang on. This Gnu ad is pretty funny, but wait, their ads are better than their snowboards, another example of money going to the wrong place, so never mind. I give up, I hate ads, they weigh down the magazine, make me waste energy turning extra pages, and distract me from bad articles and pipe shots without lip. For once in my life, I wish it wasn’t all about the benjamins.
-Brooke Geery
