What if there was something *really *offensive on the snowboard? Like a picture of a snowboard punk neatly groomed and gainfully employed?
Nope. Youthful boarders have a very annoying habit of sitting on their asses in a line across the hill, blocking the hill, with their bases well exposed. Then when the youth get cold from spending so much time sitting in the snow on their asses, they go into the chalet to warm up, leaving their bases exposed on the board racks outside.
That’s laughable.
Look, it’s all about marketing, not freedom of expression.
Burton wants to sell boards to the youth market. Youth as in rebels without a cause. The more Burton tests the bounds of what is sociallly acceptable, the more boards they will sell in the youth market, which is their primary market. To do this, they want to advertise themselves as being rebelious, an outsider, alienated, edgy, tough, challenging boundaries . . . so they lay down graphics that include nude women and illustrations of how to make vulgar gestures by amputating remaining fingers. The more noise Burton generates through such marketing, the more boards (regardless of graphics) it will sell. When a youth goes to his mother asking for a new board, he’ll be whining for a Burton because he wants to be cool and independent just like his buddies who also have been trying to get their moms to buy them the unacceptable boards, so even though his mom will not buy the board with the graphics he wants, Burton will get the sale.
Ski resorts want to sell tickets, instruction, accomodation, etc., and it is mature adults who hold the family purse strings. They know that parents would prefer to have their children taught by instructors who do not advertise soft porn or self-amputation – that’s a no-brainer for the resorts. The more they provide a non-offensive environment, the more money adults and families will spend with them as opposed to going elsewhere. Although resorts enjoy a bit of edgy publicity (e.g. independent films in which a naked dude swings from a balcony, or a fellow hucks big air out of bounds, or X-cross racers collide . . .), the product that they offer is consciously mainstream, for they market to families and well-heeled adults. Since almost all resorts have learned that families include youth snowboarders, they tend to encourage snowboarding. Since they know that banning staff from riding on offensive snowboards while on duty will not reduce customer traffic at all, and may in fact offer a slight competitive advantage by not steering away any customers, they bann staff from using offensive boards while on duty.
Complaining about this is laughable, for it is all about marketing. The snowboarding youth are simply a very well defined market that both the board manufacturers and the the resorts are playing for all they are worth, each in their own way depending on how best they can maximize their profits.
It’s late October. The summer and fall are over. The weather sucks. Ski fever is near it peak, for the ski season is within sight.
Retailers are receiving their new stock, resorts are selling season passes, tech heads are cobbling together their gear, ski magazines are putting out their first issues for the year, and people are writing in to these magazines and to local rags about ski industry issues.
What better time could there be to deliberately create an issue that gets the word out about a particular brand?
Exactly. They’ve done this before, they’ll do it again. When your major company is the IBM of snowboarding you need to do some odd things to remain edgy.
The thing about lift-area skiing is that all the MILFs are suited up in ski suits, so you don’t know who has a good body and who does not.
If the youth were to slide on boards in which the nudie graphics were of there own mothers rather than Playboy bunnies, that problem would be solved.
After all, if it is perfectly acceptable for youth to scoot about on nudie boards, there is no reason why the nudes should not be of one person rather than another person.
Does any manufacturer put out a Walter Mondale nudie board?
Women covered by snow, boots and straps? :mad: That’s degrading to them!
Ah, bouv pronounces for the masses.
The boards don’t offend me. I think they’re butt-ugly but the images aren’t the problem. It’s the stupidity. If some guy thinks corporate images of semi-nude Playboy models and self-mutilation are really edgy and hip he’s mostly labeled himself as a lame asshole. It’s all just so right out there, so daring, so blatantly designed to set one aside from mainstream losers.
Yawn.
Those stupid damned boards aren’t daring, edgy or artful. They’re crude marketing ploys, aimed quite precisely at the loudly self-proclaimed ‘rebel’ element in the sport. They’re expensive signs: I Am Apart From The Common Herd. They’re very effective at parting fools from their money.
If people are offended by the images, hey, that was the frickin’ idea. It’s the sole basis of their marketing appeal. It’s disingenuous to get all pissy and self-righteous and claim otherwise. You need to get the hell over youself, bouv. Spittle-flinging rant on the utterly predictable outcome to a stupid marketing ploy. Falling for the hype isn’t exactly a ticket to condemn others, y’know?
Which leads us to the ultimate question for skiers. It is a perfect day after a storm. There you are, in a glade with your honey, with unblemished powder before you.
Do you grab first tracks, or do the two of you make a snow angel? Due to the nature of powder poaching, you can’t have both. What do you do?
I headed down to the Bundy vault last night, and yes, in fact, that picture is her centerfold, and there is definitely a visible nipple. So it’s a bit more than asses going on with these boards.
Are the graphics on the top or bottoms of the boards?
Also, one of the boards has a cartoon graphic of what looks like a guy cutting off his pointer finger, then cutting the pointer finger off what appears to be a glove, then sewing the glove finger on his hand in place of the real finger. Is this supposed to have some meaning that I’m missing?
As to the OP, as a marketing tool, great job by Burton. As a snowboarder and a parent, thanks a lot, Burton. My wife and I aren’t prudes, and we’re not all “think of the children” about it. But we try to teach our girls a certain appreciation for the human body while also teaching them that nudity is appropriate in some situations but not in others. While we don’t try to shield their eyes from unexpected displays of nudity, it is a little disappointing that there are fewer and fewer places we can go to not be presented with a situation where we have to explain ‘good naked’ and ‘bad naked’. I understand freedom of expression, and I’m not protesting the boards. I just wish some companies used better judgment in marketing their brand. Anything for a buck, right?
And by the way, just because you can’t see nipple and snatch doesn’t mean you can say they’re not nude.
They’re naked, sorry, semi-naked women. If that’s edgy…well, half-naked women have been used to sell shit since Day 1.
I admit, I would be a little skeeved out if I went to a ski instructor’s place and saw him using that board. I don’t look like that, and I have enough comparisons in my life, thank you very much. I’d go elsewere. And I don’t think anybody has any grounds to stand on to call me a prude.
Plus, they’re UGLY. Just downright ugly. And where are my half-naked men on a board???
The trend now is graphics on the bottoms of the boards.
That may not seem to make sense, but they’re highly visible when you’re on the lift, or if you take your break sitting on your butt in the snow with the board at 90 degrees to the ground, so the bottom’s vertical (the short way, not the long way)
No friends on a powder day. That’s an easy one.
Well…yeah, actually they are. But don’t let being completely wrong stop you.
It makes sense, I’m a boarder. Just wondering about the graphics on these particular boards as I couldn’t tell from the images in the article.
In a world where there is seldom a single right answer, that, sir, is the single right answer.
For the nudie boards, the full body including face is on the deck, and the butt is on the base.
For the amputation boards, the result of the amputation (a single drawing) is on the deck and the process of the amputation (several drawings) is on the base.
You can look at the graphics at the Burton site: Snowboard Gear | Boards, Bindings, & More.com | Burton Snowboards US
Note that they are designed for playing in the park, where it is common to sit about with bases exposed while waiting to take a turn, and where it is common to fall and expose bases.
Also note that there are no such boards in their women’s line, which suggests that this is pure marketing to immature males, rather than art with a message.
Yeah, “only” 2,000. They only made 2,000 TorRed Dodge Charger Daytonas in 2006, and I’ve seen at least three of them. In New Mexico. And it wasn’t even ski season. To be fair, one of them had Colorado plates, and I’m pretty sure it’s snowing in Denver already.
Ski Taos, baby! Err, I mean, “Snowboard Taos, baby!”