1.2

Snowboarding Magazine, November 1994 Issue

Screwed, Crewed, and Tattooed

Gnu strikes again. This time the 1/4-20 screw is the center-piece. The ad features a four-inch long mounting screw with the words "1/4-20 Rules." Gnu's new cutline? "Better than metric in every way." This ad was probably spawned at the 1993 TransWorld Industry Conference during the industry standards discussion when a M-6 vs. 1/4-20 argument nearly resulted in fist-fighting. Either way, Gnu's advertising should be used as a textbook by action-sports advertising agencies. (A book Simple shoes creatives seem to have already read.)

Now, Ice-T is a honest, hardcore rapper with a sharp wit and a heavy rep, but this ad for Body Count's new album "Born Dead" looks like a satire straight out of "CB4" or "Fear of A Black Hat." Please, isn't everyone a tad bit tired of the bang-bang-you're-dead-suck-my-gat-and-give-me-head style of "gangsta rock'n rap?" And, what is a gangsta rock ad doing in a snowboard magazine? Oh yeah, we forgot, all those new-schoolers probably love the Ice man. Ice, head back to the morgue and dig up some new ideas, huh!

Is is possible that Sims could create an ad worse than their comic strip from version 1? We didn't think so until we saw the new issue of TeaWorld. The new debacle, "He's loved, he's hated. Controversial. Guaranteed never to be what you expect." Bill Clinton? Nope. It's that rogue snowboarder Shaun Palmer. The copy continues "Tattoos and Cadillac parts--a part of Palmer's life come together in his new tattooed board graphics. Original tattoo art is the background to a futuristic spaceship made from Cadillac parts--designed by Palmers own skin artist Aaron Cain." Now, let's think about this for a minute. Palmer is an icon in snowboarding. He's a hero of mythological proportions. We don't have room to draw the parallels between Shaun and Luke Skywalker (Joseph Campbell's Hero of a Thousand Faces made celluloid), so let's just say Palm's the all time ruler. When a hero (and all his body markings) is reduced to lame ad copy the people will revolt. Word is that Palmer is revolting. He was recently seen at a Benneton meeting in Austria and word from the Sims camp reveals that Palmer didn't show up to design a new shape for his pro model. So where is Shaun? We'd guess he's running from the Sims advertising copy writer. [Note to the creative people at Sims: Are you being paid by the competition? Also, who did the great Sims clothing ad with Neal Drake and Jennifer on a scooter in front of a red wall? It rules. Maybe you should listen more to whoever suggested running it, and less to the person who did the Palmer ad.]

Burton gets back on track after a horrible start. That whole "big industry" thing just wasn't cutting it.

Someone's back on it at Santa Cruz.

Shawn Farmer and a bag of nuts. The parallels are obvious and many. Kudos to K2 for noticing and running it in their Fat Bob ad.

Simple shoes ads are exactly what Gnu's would running be if Gnu made shoes. The new ad? "not a subliminal ad," says the headline. Then in smaller type, below the shoe the words, "buy it asshole." Mmm, the sweet taste of honesty in advertising. It's such a rarity.

Hey look everyone: Billabong removed the ugly border from their ad. Do you think they got the idea reading FLAKE? Hmmm.

Check out Cappel's logo. When you deconstuct the logo into it's seperate elements the letters end up being c-u-n-t-s. Hmmm, it must be a lot of fun for the owners at Ride to get that word printed in all those mainstream magazines.

Blonde and Cappel seem to be competing in the "using hot chicks to move product" category. Blonde's ad features a Betty Page style hottie in a vinyl fetish top, and Cappel sports a pouty blonde in a big sweater. These ads look just as bad as the boring stuff in the fashion mags.

Evol's ad features a photo that would have appeared in Thrasher magazine's poseur of the month section if it hadn't been a shot of serious ripper Brad Gross. The picture is of Goss doing a 50-50 on a handrail at the mid-station in Riksgransen, Sweden, however, it could be successfully argued that Goss simply buckled into his board and stood on the railing. The photo has no motion, no weightlessness, no nothing. The photographer [niko] obviously felt self-conscious about the photo because the caption reads, "25 foot long 50-50 to a 20 foot drop." While it probably was just that, you'd never know by looking at the photo. Niko, can you say sequence?

Leave it to the Euros at Oxbow to run a full-spread image ad using a snowboarder no one east of the Atlantic has ever heard of. Sure, Karl-Heinz Zangerl is a serious hard-guy, but will he help sell Oxbow clothing in the US? Not a chance. Hook up an American, soon.

Pacific Drive and Spare Snow Armor got lined up side-by-side on a spread with parallel tail-grab shots. Nate Cole in the PD ad and Alexei Garick in the Spare ad. Thanks to the obvious comparison we have to go with Garick for the most stylie. However, if you squint the two ads almost look like a sequence. Someone should complain to their TeaWorld ad reps, or is that Times-Mirror ad reps?

Mixing boards isn't the only thing Santa Monica Airlines has been up to lately. Seems they've gotten into mixing metaphors. Headline: "On a road to nowhere. . .riding a freightrain from hell." SMA, is it a road, a rail, or just the lyrics to a death-metal song we've not heard before?

Sunshine: Are you using the same lay-out person as Rossignol? Wild Duck: Hey, if an ad sucks the first time why not run it again. Yeah! Hooger: Once again beaten by which man? Who, the one designing your ads? Crazy Banana: What is this an ad for a upcoming Queer Nation sleep in? Original Sin: Still sucky. Bad copy, sad photo. Rossignol: What, do you do just move the logo around the photo until it doesn't cover any action? Please hire an art director, then refer them to Sunshine Clothing Company.

Go to the next issue or back to the flakezine homestead.