The New Axis of Surf
At the Surfer Poll Awards on Wednesday evening 17 year old Carissa Moore won the #3 slot for most popular female surfer in the world. To much applause and cheering this fresh faced, healthy and positive young girl took the podium in front of a room full of surf industry heavy hitters and thanked her sponsors, Target, Nike 6.0 and Red Bull.
The room freaked.
You can find her speech on www.surferpoll.com
Target
Nike 6.0
Red Bull Surfing
Anonymous
September 18, 2009Dims, please?
The Justin
September 18, 2009I cant wait for target to come out with the Carissa model!! should be a sick board.
Anonymous
September 18, 2009the Garmentos in the surf industry need to freak out—outsiders coming into their sacred market! competition breeds success! those guys have had it their way too long and hurt the sport…..
Anonymous
September 18, 2009Well, Kelly’s already got the deck pad wrapped up:
http://www.komunityproject.com/products.aspx?id=4517
lawless
September 18, 2009Nike tried to get into skateboarding years back and failed miserably. Then they took a different approach and invested in it for the long-term and it paid off for them and now they are firmly entrenched. They are very much taking the same approach with surfing, they haven’t been too successful in surfing but look at their team. It’s all young rippers who will be the next generation. To them Nike IS core surfing because that’s all they’ve known. It’s a matter of context and who you ask.
Interesting take on Nike and skateboarding:
http://foulweather.blogspot.com/2008/10/tell-lie-big-enough-nikes-major-threat.html
Lots of parallels to it’s approach to surfing. They’ve got the money to keep at it. Don’t forget they own Hurley, so they’re already fully entrenched just not clearly under their own brand.
Michael Taylor
September 18, 2009It’s hard to tell from the video what the exact reaction was, but I assume from JP’s description that that it was alcohol-fueled groans.
I looked at some of the other videos, and what did everyone else do? Thank their sponsors.
Here is a kid who is doing exactly what the others did (most of whom she probably looks up to), and she gets grief because they are the “wrong” sponsors.
I’m not crazy about non-surfing companies coming in either, but this is a 17-year-old accepting an award, not the marketing director at Target addressing SIMA.
I hope she got up the next morning and went surfing while everyone else was hungover and bitter.
J.P. St. Pierre
September 19, 2009When I was in high school in the 80s Nike tried to get into surfing with bright neon booties called Aqua Socks (endorsed by Laird Hamilton). They were awful and kooky. However, Nike 6.0 is hiring a lot of good young graphic artist and building a really good surf team of teenagers who are going to be the next group of influential rippers. Nike has resources that dwarf the entire current collective surf industry. If Nike wants surfing that will take it. This is not like the clueless Ambercrombie and Finch trying to gravytrain surfing, this is a well organized effort. This is not a drill.
Anonymous
September 30, 2009did anyone here get in to surfing because of clothes? do you really honestly think that any company cares more about surfing than it does about turning profit? it’s a bummer that we all have to get paid and if surfing’s culture is really eroded by brands it’s as much the fault of surfers as it is any Nike or Target or Nissan or Suzuki. style isn’t defined by brands. it’s defined by what someone does on a board and how they do life. if someone’s a kook then call ’em out, but last time i checked Carissa pretty much rips.