ASR Blog

NSSA attacks Lower's

The NSSA Nationals are running wild at Lower Trestles. The event has been running since Tuesday, with the championships taking place tomorrow. If you’ve never been to Nationals, you should really try to make it down. It’s a circus—the sponsor’s tents are set up running down the beach for what seems like miles and each company tries to outdo the other with the coolest activities for the kids in between heats. Foosball tables are brought down, there are full on BBQ set-ups with team managers cooking lunch for their team, and games (the wackier the better) are in full force. The beach gets crowded with parents, photographers, media and lots of umbrellas, so claim your sand early. You can try and get a surf in at Middle’s—try meaning you hope a grom (who out surfs you even though they are more than half your age) doesn’t snake you. It is a great time and it will take your breath away to see these kids perform on the waves.

For more NSSA Nationals info, click here.
To see the event live, click here.

Skateboarding in China

I posted a story in Industry News about the growth of skateboarding in China. The article states that skateboarding is becoming less underground and more mainstream--Chinese skate brands are popping up, making buying a board affordable, and companies such as Quiksilver and DC Shoes are now distributing their product in the country. There'€™s also an Asian X-Games, which, according to the article, was put in place in order to scout new Asian talent. China also boasts the largest skatepark in the world. The article reads, ". . . SMP International, an Australian-owned skateboarding company, finished construction on the world's largest skatepark, located in New Jiangwan City outside Shanghai. More than 12,000 square meters in size, the park features the world's biggest vert ramp, the world's largest concrete skate bowl, and a 5,000-seat stadium."

Obviously, China's potential as a contributor to action sports and consumerism is still largely untapped, and these signs show that it will explode one day soon. Raph Cooper, creator of She Hui (Society) Skateboards, the first domestic Chinese skateboarding company, hits the nail on the head when he says,€œ"If we can keep it hyped up in China, if we can keep the business going well enough to be able to feed the scene for competitions or for demos, then we could really see China putting a big impact on skating as whole."

What do you think of this? Does the company you work for sell it's product in China?

Go Skateboarding Day

You have a little over two days to figure out what you’re going to do for Go Skateboarding Day, which is this Saturday, June 21. Created by the International Association of Skateboard Companies (IASC) in 2004, the event “originated as the day for skateboarders to have fun, to raise awareness about the issues we face, to show the world what skateboarding is really all about, to reclaim our culture and to define skateboarding as the rebellious, creative celebration of independence it continues to be.” Since that first day on June 21, 2004, thousands of people have responded and have either put on or participated in skate events, just rolled around with their friends, or even stopped by their local skate retailer to say hi. If you haven’t decided what you’re going to do to celebrate, check out the IASC site for some ideas. And, Go Skateboarding!

Surfing out of X Games

It was announced yesterday that after five years, surfing won’t be a part of this summer’s X Games. According to X Games surfing organizer Brad Gerlach, “They were having a hard time finding sponsorship because it’s the only part of the X Games that’s not live… They wanted to pull back and take a fresh look at it all for next year.” It’s too bad—surfing has always been fighting to enter the Olympics as a sport, so being an event at the X Games was the closest thing it had. Originally, surfing was held at Huntington Beach and ran in conjunction with the X Games, but, the waves never panned out and were usually crap. As a result, it was held in Mexico the past couple years, and ran in a time period where swell was supposed to hit. Since it wasn’t live, it was a bit anti-climatic to watch it on TV, because you usually knew who won. Thus, it gets pulled from the roster.

These are all the same reasons why surfing isn’t part of the Olympics—there are too many elements to the sport that we must count on to make it a viewable event. Maybe a wave pool is the answer?

On the Extreme 365 website, 60% of the users say it’s no big deal that surfing was pulled—how do you feel?

Nike 6.0 on the scene

Back in April, I had written about Nike 6.0 sponsoring the WQS surf contest, the Lower’s Pro, formerly known as the Body Glove Surfabout. Only one of three contests that are held at Lower Trestles each year, I was surprised that a endemic brand wouldn’t want to get their hands on the title sponsorship—with the marketing that comes with it—for one of the best surf breaks in the United States.

Well, it looks like Nike 6.0 isn’t going to let go—it was announced earlier this week that they have signed on as an associate sponsor for the AST Dew Tour and AST Winter Dew Tour. I’ve never been to a Dew Tour event, but from reading the press it gets, and seeing the television coverage, it seems to be the next big thing after the X-Games. If Nike now has a hold of that, what are they going to go for next? A new WCT contest in some exotic location? It’ll be interesting to watch and see.

Women's Motocross Debuts at Summer X

The newest sport to be added to the X-Games for the summer is women’s motocross. As it says in the press release, “The Women's Moto X Racing competition will include 10 of the top women motocross racers in the world competing for the gold medal in the first-time event.” How cool is that? X-Games always seems to do a good job to include the girls—at Summer X they designate a girl’s day with clinics and How-To’s with the pros, and most of the different sports disciplines have both male and female athletes competing. Keep it up X-Games, it’s nice to see that someone remembers the ladies.

*Photo taken from EXPN

Hang Time

If you’re a skateboarder or snowboarder, you can now be honest in telling your story about how much air you got pulling that last jump. Introducing the Hangtimer—a multi-function, water-resistant watch and accelerometer that straps to your clothes and measures how much time you spend in the air. Perfect for those times when you were convinced you got a few feet off the ground, but your friend says it was only a credit card air—now you can prove it. The LA Times featured the Hangtimer this past Sunday, saying that they took it to a skate park, asking the kids to try it out—the skaters began to argue on whose turn it was; the Times took that as a positive review.

The Hangtimer is $75.00 and available at 800-640-3892 or check out their site.

*Photo taken from the Hangtimer site.

A marketing calendar for you

Making a marketing calendar can be daunting—trust me. What may seem like a simple task adds up to an enormous mission, one where you don’t know what size of a calendar you should get (wall, desk, month by month) and then how in the world are you going to fit everything on there so people can actually read and use it? Enter the new ASR calendar. It’s a brand new feature up on the homepage of the ASR site. Although at first, it may seem like an Xcel spreadsheet on crack, take a closer look and you’ll see that it’s easy to follow. Presto! Now you don’t need your intern to create that marketing calendar for you—just refer your fellow coworkers to ASR—we’ve done the job for you.

By the way, while you’re on there, make sure to check out the new article by Kimball Taylor on a tiny store with big aspirations, The Pod Room.

Volcom does it right

This past weekend, the family and I found ourselves up in Newport Beach so we decided to check out Volcom Stone’s Totally Crustaceous Surfing Championships. It was the first time that I had been to one of these Volcom contests, and I was blown away by how they go all out for it. I’ve been to my share of contests, but I have never seen anything like this; just like their tradeshow booths, the contest had a theme—in this case it was Muscle Beach—and no detail was spared. All those working the contest were dressed up either in “muscle suits” or some similar looking workout gear. There was a workout area, a la Venice Beach, complete with bodybuilders—males and females. You could squat, lift, even compete in a strong man contest to see if you could ring the bell. And there were the little details as well—lockers for competitors, seats for the crowd to watch, games, live announcing, etc. Nothing was overlooked. And, the coolest thing—all Volcom staff, not just the lowly marketing people come to support the event. The likes of Richard Woolcott, Troy Eckert, Brad Dougherty and Dave Post could all be seen, dressed up, and talking with the masses. Once again, Volcom just does it right.

To check out pictures from the event, click here.

Nike 6.0 Lower's Pro Wildcard Carissa Moore

So you gotta hand it to Carissa Moore for trying--the phenom from Oahu was the first girl to have entered in the WQS Lower’s Pro contest. At fifteen years old, she was the wildcard for the contest and her heat included veteran, and Lower’s local Shane Beschen, as well as ASP World Tour stalwart Adriano de Souza (BRA) and Australian upstart James Woods (Lennox Head, AUS). The girl fought hard, but in the end, Shane came up the winner. He is quoted as saying, "There was a lot of hype surrounding the heat with Carissa (Moore) in it because she was the first girl to surf the event, but I just went out and tried to surf it like any other heat.  I think everyone was looking at it the same way - we all just went out there and surfed." Glad to see that they treated her as any other competitor. Good job Carissa—you’ll get them next year!