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	Volcom Team Maestro Brad Dougherty with Star Player Gavin Beschen
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	Photo by Lee Crane
	Kenna and Kristin flank Quiksilver’s Danny Kwock. Twin towers, indeed.
	Photo by Lee Crane
	Volcom Head Coach Richard Woolcott with offensive coordinator Tom Ruiz.

Volcom Premiers Football, Shmootball

Posted 07.12.2002
On Thursday, July 11, Volcom premiered its newest surf film “Football, Shmootball…A 16mm North Shore Diary,” at the Regency Laguna South Coast Cinema in Laguna Beach, California to a packed house of several hundred industry insiders, pro surfers, and Laguna locals. While the film was dubbed to be the story behind “the house” — that being the house that Volcom rented for several months on the North Shore last winter — what we actually got to see was all the hot surfing that took place in front of the house at Backdoor, plus various other spots around the North Shore. In addition, the film repeatedly cut back to a group of people attempting to play football on the sand in front of the house (they actually sucked), and interviews with various Volcom vagrants who lived at the house during the winter, talking about the gnarly parties and lifestyle they lived.

While these assorted stories primed the audience for a section rivaling a “girls gone wild” party scene, it never materialized.

Instead, the opening shots of the movie filmed by Brad Anderson and directed and produced by Troy Eckert, included a very well-stocked bar and some fire burning, then cut to Bruce Irons putting on an incredible display of small-wave mastery, popping aerials and throwing huge, fin-release cutbacks. Then the waves get big and the action turned to huge backdoor barrels and filthy-deep, endless tube rides. After watching five minutes of Irons pulling in deep, it’s no surprise he won the Pipe Masters event this year. And there’s decent coverage of him doing just that.

Other standouts included the freak Ozzie Wright showing he can surf Hawaii just as well as his home breaks in Australia, and an insane section of Gavin Beschen ripping to the haunting riffs of classic Black Sabbath.

While “Football, Shmootball” left the crowd pumped to go surfing and did a great job documenting all the action that took place in the water in front of the the Volcom North Shore house, it definitely left the crowd wondering what really happened inside the house. Then again, maybe we really don’t want to know.

Don’t Miss The Slideshow Scroll back to the top of the page and click on Ah, Football Shmootball.

	Photo by John Maynard
	Billabong Juniors’ Marketing Manager Jessica Trent Nichols has a cameo in Blue Crush.
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	The stars of Blue Crush.

Billabong Girls Goes Hollywood

Posted 05.09.2002
After millions watched Elliot feed E.T. Reese’s Pieces in the 1982 blockbuster E.T., sales of the candy skyrocketed. In fact, Reuters reports that sales of the candy-coated peanut-butter-flavored discs jumped a whopping 66 percent three months after the movie’s release. So what’s this have to do with surfing? Last fall Billabong negotiated a deal with Universal Pictures to have its juniors’ line appear exclusively on the main characters in Blue Crush, a film about a group of surfer girls who grew up on the North Shore. The film will hit theaters nationwide on July 12.

Terms of the agreement were not disclosed, but deal means the stars of Blue Crush, played by Kate Bosworth (Remember The Titans), Michelle Rodriguez (The Fast And The Furious), Mika Boream (Hearts In Atlantis), and surfer/model/actress Sanoe Lake, will be rocking Billabong gear throughout the full-length feature. The clothes and swimwear are from Billabong’s Spring and Summer ‘02 lines, including Perfection, Orange, and Twilight swimsuits; Keala and Sandbar surfshorts; Lingo and Gromster boardshorts; Pixies denim pant; and Far-Out crochet top.

For Billabong Girls, which has been living in Roxy’s shadow, the product-placement arrangement is a major step forward in establishing its presence not only with the ‘core market, but with mainstream girls as well.

“I’m really excited, because Roxy’s the number-one brand and we’re number two,” says Billabong Girls Marketing Manager Jessica Trent Nichols. “It always seems like because Roxy’s been around longer and they’re in so many stores that they win by default because they’re Roxy and people know the name. Not everyone knows that Billabong makes girls’ stuff. I really feel it will help put us on the map in that aspect — something that would have taken us a lot longer to get to.”

In addition to Universal’s own marketing effort, Billabong Girls is beefing up its ad campaign. Beginning in May, Billabong Girls will be running Blue Crush/Billabong co-branded ads in Surfing Girl, CosmoGIRL, Happy, and either Surfer or Surfing — not to mention running its own ads in Seventeen, Teen People, CosmoGIRL, and Paper. Furthermore, in-store P.O.P. programs will roll out in early summer and feature the actresses in Billabong product.

“I think it’s great that Universal wanted ‘core publicity as well as mainstream publicity,” says Trent Nichols. “They saw an important value in all of that.”

As for the movie, Trent Nichols is confident the movie portrays surfers in a realistic manner — not like the chemically-dependent burnouts from Point Break and definitely not like the pensive, artistic saps we had to witness in In God’s Hands. The movie is directed by John Stockwell (crazy/beautiful) and produced by Academy Award-winner Brian Grazer (A Beautiful Mind) — both avid surfers.

“The studio really wants people to be inspired by this,” says Trent Nichols. “They feel this will have the cultural and lifestyle influence that something like Flashdance did in the 80s — that girls are going to want to go out and buy the surfwear and learn to surf.”

Trent Nichols, who has a cameo in the film playing none other than “Jessica from Billabong,” knows a lot is riding on this film. Aside from the money and time she and Billabong have invested, the brand’s image is at stake.

“Aligning your brand with a Hollywood picture — and we all know Hollywood’s version of surfing can be really scary — is definitely a risk,” she says, “but you’re not going to get anywhere without taking a risk. I definitely had times where I was kind of nervous, but going over there on location in Hawai’i and seeing the caliber of the acting and the footage and just all the people working on the film — it’s an amazing package.”

Will customers eat up Billabong Girls’ gear like they did those peanut-butter candies in 1982? We’ll have to wait ’til July 12 to see.

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Billabong Unveils Do-It-Yourself Trunks

Posted 03.19.2002
For the past couple of seasons retailers have been begging surf-apparel manufacturers for something new, something art-driven. Billabong says it has the answer: custom boardshorts.In just over a month Billabong’s custom trunks program, dubbed Tag A Trunk, will hit surf shops nationwide. For 40 dollars (retail), kids get a pair of white, ready-to-paint Billabong trunks, a packet of stencils in the form of flowers, corporate fonts and logos, girls, eagles, skulls, and stars, and an instruction sheet with guidelines such as, “Get to work on these things with some enamel paint, paint markers permanent markers, house paint, or whatever else you can get your hands on” and “Always paint in a well ventilated area. We’re serious about this one — you don’t want to kill any more brain cells.”

As Billabong puts it, the idea is to “take art into your own hands and create your custom boardshorts. This is not rocket science — all you need is some paint and a little creativity.”

“Surfers will be able to express their own personalities through the shorts,” says Billabong Design Director Rob McCarty.

The Tag A Trunk program will be backed at retail through P.O.P. and magazine advertisements. Additionally, Billabong is holding a contest for kids to send in their best trunks design. The grand prize winner will get VIP treatment at the Trestles WCT this fall. The second place entrant will win an Andy Irons surfboard.

Sounds good, but will kids (and, more importantly, moms) be willing to cough up 40 bucks (plus the cost of paints, permanent markers, etc.) for a pair of trunks they’re just going to draw all over? Yes, says Steve Wilson, Billabong VP of merchandising and design.

“I think kids are going to be stoked to go, ‘Are you kidding me? I’d like to do that to my trunks,’” says Wilson. “Everybody has that creative thing inside them.”

Billabong’s Tag A Trunk program also represents the company’s move from computer-driven logos and designs to freehand artwork. “Our art that we’re doing on T-shirts and our prints is all hand done,” says McCarty. “It’s not computer generated.”

Billabong isn’t looking to make a fortune off the Tag A Trunk program — it’s more of a marketing vehicle. The point is to have fun, says the company.

“You may be asking yourself, ‘What does graffiti have to do with surfing?’ reads the instruction sheet. “We are not sure. But at the end of the day, painting your own trunks is a lot of fun.”