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All the stuff about being skater owned, ethically produced (maybe not now it's Vietnam production) and a good fight that needs taking to the big boys aside.... (all things I'm stoked on)
They're still just regular skate shoes. Like 70% of the shoes out there, they're Vans basically. And not having a logo that can be easily seen in footage and photos is damn near suicidal. Unless you have very, very regular content of your own coming out (which I doubt there's budget for) then your shoes are unrecognisable in all the other edits that they could crop up in.
"Are they Vans maybe?" Goes to Vans store.
Not having your shoes do their own marketing in other companies edits is something that the most of the existing shoe brands have mastered. Go watch virtually any edit out now that doesn't belong to a shoe brand and you'll see swooshes, 3 stripes, Vans wavy line thing, Lakai's Flare, etc, etc. All those are helping those brand get seen over and over again. These shoes are practically invisible.
But, I hope it works out. This is just my observation.
There's a market for those who just can't bear logo shoes in skate videos anymore. At least I know people regularly bring it up and myself I've been part of that demographic for years. In my opinion it just pollutes the skating and turns what could be interesting footage into a bland commercial (which is a fine step to take but then you lose me and many others), when business ties are too obvious the sincerity of a production is diminished, and most skaters still want to see sincerity in footage whether or not they intellectualize it. When I see videos chockfull of folks in Nikes, Vans or Adidas that look like they were designed to scream nothing but brand name on footage, part of me can't help but register it as orchestrated and feel like I'm watching some sort of Zumiez production that's completely disconnected from the relatable realities of daily skateboarding by the people. I don't think I'm the only one and if anything I'm observing that skaters in general are growing tired of obnoxious logos and aggressive marketing general again - it's up to those brands to catch up, I think Pontus is the one up to date here. A lot of classic, popular skate shoes were recognizable by their silhouette only and didn't feature prominent logos, in a sense those are actually bad marketing if you're trying to cater to skateboarders and not mall kids, and also a sign of weakness somewhere in the actual product if that's what the brand has got to rely on.
Kinda bummed about the possible production relocation too, a lot of the appeal of this to me was the made-in-Europe thing too. On the other hand it's still a Pontus project and the man has always been avant-garde, so it'll probably retain my interest still. I guess just wait and see.
Not here to beef, just discuss but I think you have a rose tinted idea of how and why skateboard media exists. In a nutshell, it's almost ALL marketing. Mags, videos, IG accounts are all trying to sell you something. Always have, ever since the dawn of the business.
Haven't you ever noticed that teams are organised by brands and not geography or some other factor? We're all used to there being a Zero team, a Polar team, a Vans team, an OJ team, etc. There's no Denver team or Miami team - teams in skateboarding don't exist for anything other than marketing for a brand.
And magazines don't just happen to have an interview with just any old skater for the most part - that person is in there for several reasons but a big one is because the brand/s he or she rides for advertises in that mag. Same with the websites where you watch your favourite edits. I realise this isn't a hard and fast rule but you know it's true for the most part.
It's possible that on any given day that the edits you'll see on Thrasher or elsewhere are mostly produced or funded by a brand. Right now there's Herman's Baker 4 part, Lucas Puig's new Adidas part, John Gardner's OJ part and yes there are also some, what you might call 'indie' videos up there today too but in this day and age it's highly likely that some company's money went into paying for a plane ticket or a hotel room for somebody in those vids. I realise that scene vids exist to support and hype the scene but many feature people who are sponsored at a flow level at the very least - which of course is still marketing.
You say that most edits you see look like orchestrated marketing efforts - and they are, it's obvious. The whole of the skateboard media in all it's many forms is one big marketing push. The majority of what you see in photos and edits today isn't just for the culture, it's an advertisement. Has been since at least the 70's and 80s. You'd be hard pressed to find ANY video or magazine editorial that doesn't feature a logo on somebody, it's how skateboarding has been designed and refined over several decades. You'll have a hard time trying to find a logo-free, marketing-free, just-for-the-culture world of skateboarding - somebody wants to sell you something!
Kind of ironic that we're discussing a shoe brand with no big logos and how that's refreshing when actually, they're still trying to sell you some shoes