Advertisements are a very important component of the professional skateboarding industry. Ads that are featured in skateboard magazines or on skateboarding websites have several purposes. They let consumers know which companies are sponsoring which professional skaters. They create buzz for upcoming skate videos, and most importantly, they promote new products.
Skateboarding is one of the few advertising markets that is primarily print based. In a world in which Newsweek no longer prints its issues, skateboard magazines like Thrasher are thriving. Two things that most skateboard ads usually share in common are minimal copy and the fact that their target looks at them for longer than the average consumer. It isn’t uncommon for amateur skaters and other fans of skateboarding to decorate their room with ads cut from their favorite magazines. Brands like Axe and Ray Ban have had successful print campaigns in recent years, yet it is lesser known brands like Supra Footwear and Deathwish Skateboard decks whose ads are adorning the walls of their target consumers.
Many modern ads for products within the skateboarding industry follow a similar formula. An ad typically shows one of a companies sponsored riders doing a trick while utilizing the product being advertised. Others simply feature a prominent product shot and a logo.
Skate ads are almost always done in-house by a small team of designers. They usually follow a fairly simply formula, and yet, according to this infographic, they seem to work.
Could this model be applied to other industries? Imagine a Nike ad feature a photo sequence of a popular NBA player performing an impressive dunk in an empty court. There could be something to be learned from an advertising market in which its companies perform their intended goals so well with so few resources.
So what’s the big idea?