Surfers, you’re slipping. You’ve been neutered under the anesthesia of mainstream approval. Surf culture today is as virile as a septuagenarian who’s run dry of Cialis. We’re boring because boring is safe and sales-friendly, especially when those sales are made to “lifestyle enthusiasts” whose tender sensibilities could never digest the original product.
Someone at Rusty was evidently bored of being boring, and in protest, produced the above ad of Josh Kerr airing onto a cartoon SUP surfer. (The ad can be seen in SURFING’s Europe Issue, out this month). Josh launches, nears the SUP-er, the SUP-er registers the threat and reacts to his impending doom, Josh collides unabashed, there’s requisite SUP carnage, and finally a headstone in the whitewash bearing a cross and the letters “RIP.” So there’s a fully developed narrative arc to the ad — quite an accomplishment with no dialogue — but people are livid (though not, apparently, about the cross).
A forum on something called Stand Up Zone has 15 pages and counting of member vitriol aimed at Rusty and the ad, promising boycotts (because Rusty Surfboards is, in fact, in the SUP market). Surfer Magazine asks their online readers: “What do you think? Is it harmless cartoon humor, or tasteless and offensive?”
Even if you don’t surf with your own arms and need a paddle to help out, you must tip your hat (your floppy tropical bucket hat for evil Mr. Sun protection!) to Rusty for having a modicum of personality in an otherwise barren creative ad landscape. What’s the last surf advertisement you can recall? Is it …Lost’s Most Interesting Man “homage” (below)? Or their Gotcha/If You Don’t Surf “homage” (below below)? Or their Hurley Phantom “homage”? Those don’t count, chuckle as we did. Surf brand ads seem to come in two flavors: vanilla and plain. And we’ve been out of vanilla for some time now.
Rusty obviously intended humor in its ad. It doesn’t want to kill SUP surfers. Then who would buy its SUP surfboards? And against whom would its non-SUP customers direct their communal angst, so ripe as it is for manipulation by a clever ad campaign? (Many of the pro-Rusty comments about the ad amount to, “I’m going to go buy a Rusty shirt!”) So this bit of advertising should be regarded as a marketing coup and a splash of entertainment among the dreck. Nothing sinister. Again, bravo, Rusty. You rogue. —Stuart Cornuelle
Stuart is SURFING’s Managing Editor and a fan of good advertising. You can follow him on Twitter @surfingmagazine.
Related Posts
Rusty Takes Over Tavarua
posted by admin / Photos / April 16, 2008
You need to upgrade your Flash Player // var fo = new FlashObject(“http://surfingthemag.com/surfing-photo-video/surfing-photo-dept/surfingGallery.swf?pathURL=/surfing-photo-video/surfing-photo-dept/&baseURL=/surfing-photo-video/surfing-photo-dept/2008-rusty-tavarua/&xmlURL=/surfing-photo-video/surfing-photo-dept/2008-rusty-tavarua/surfingGallery.xml”, “Gallery”, “835″, “525″, “8″, “#000000″);fo.write(“flashcontent”);// Come March, [...]
SURFING Magazine and Rusty Surfboard Giveaway
posted by admin / Magazine / February 4, 2008
So, Uh, What’s Rusty Think?
posted by admin / News / May 22, 2006
So, it’s been a few months since the December ’05 closure of Clark Foam, and the foam dust is just [...]
the next time im buying a pair of trunks, im going to buy rusty. this ad rules. DEATH TO ALL SUP’ers!
Bring the PUNK back to surfing!!!!! Death to the Mainstream!!!!! If you can’t boost – go play basketball!!!! Get out of the water and stay out SUPers!!!!!!!!
NOTE to Lost… If you aren’t creative enough to come up with your own new ad campaign, I guess you can always just use the page to have a laugh at someone else’s… Eh?
NOTE to SUPers: I’m all for people getting exercise, but keep your golf carts off the freeway. Ya?
Love this add… So awesome! Keep going like that Rusty…;)
Sup riders stop the excuesses “it’s a good core workout” “its harder than it looks”
Go some where and die!
Or at least stay out of Indo!
you DO know that this is just going to ignite another firestorm over on the SUP sites? they really had their panties in an uproar when the ad first came out. the biggest issue with SUP is the double lack of water skills and wave education/politeness when they go out to play
Way to appeal to the lowest common denominator. I stopped calling myself a surfer years ago because I had no wish to be grouped in with an increasingly cliquish, violent, under-educated, and conformist crowd. Yes, conformist…..show me the surfer who cares more about being in the water than about having the right board, from the right shaper, wearing the correct brand wetsuit…all for acceptance….and I’ll show you the rare exception to the rule. Surfer’s have been lost to mainstream approval since well before I started surfing in the 80′s. In general a small-minded bunch who whenever you see a potential threat to your exclusive use of a public resource you immediately start whining and showing your true colors. And as usual, most of you can’t even hardly catch a wave. Grow up, you Stuart especially. Managing editor should have a lot more responsibility, respect, and maturity than you just displayed in your editorial. You should be ashamed, though I’m sure you’re not.
I don’t understand why anyone pays $$ for a Rusty anything these days anyway. Buy a board from your local shaper – if you’re in SD the odds are he’s shaping Rusty’s boards for extra coin anyway. And if you need a $40 Rusty T-shirt, you suck.
matt im pretty sure what you speak doesn’t hold water…but your kayak does…your a kayaker buddy.
http://goodcleanfunsurf.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/img_2724.jpg
sorry i found this on your good clean fun surf company website.
Actually I’m just a water person. I surfed long before I ever kayaked. I moved inland and discovered whitewater, and got very good at it. That picture is from Big Sur about ten years ago in a boat I hand shaped and glassed while I lived in Malibu…it’s a 7’0″ quad fish. I get in a kayak once a year these days, for the Kern River Festival. I have nothing to do with Good Clean Fun either….I managed it at one point for a while. I own a SUP specific shop now. I still take out a longboard now and then, but for the last couple of years I primarily SUP…when life is going well 4 or 5 days a week. I started surfing in ’84, the first place I ever caught a wave was 56th in HB. I don’t care what you ride, and I don’t ruin anyone else’s ride, and it is ridiculous to think that simply standing up more and having a paddle makes one a kook….a kook is a kook regardless and I’ve known plenty of them with longboards and on shortboards too.
Plus I don’t hide anonymously either…..
A kook on a short board is basically harmless…a kook on a SUP is very very dangerous…believe me, I’ve been dropped in on by both and only one has seriously hurt me…and for some reason a lot of non-surfer people see the stand up paddling as “something” for them…why is that?
matt hudgens – claiming to be a “water person” is super lame!!!!. “oh im such a water person i just love the water! and i love anything that is on it!” bring your hippy-i-love-everybody attitude elsewhere. nobody besides shortboarders should be on the water, longboarders, SUPers, yakers, please just go away. im sick of the “lets all jsut be friends and enjoy mother ocean” attitude people seem to be employing these days.
Wasn’t aware there was a 56th street in huntington. It must have been where all the rippers hung back in the day. Maybe its in the wetlands where Matt spawned a tiny fish cock and stroked into wind chop in between bird watching sessions?
I find all the bashing of Rusty to be rather interesting due to the fact that the Rusty brand is actually 2 different companies. First there is Rusty Apparel who has designed this advertisement and is gearing it towards surfers who are looking for a new pair of boardies. The second comapny is Rusty surfboards which is in now way (besides the whole branding part) affiliated with Rusty Apparel. I am sure that Rusty himself wouldn’t be approving these types of advertisements when he is in the shaping bay making sup’s for himself and clients…The bottom line is advertising aims to engage a specific demographic and this demographic was and is NOT geared towards SUP surfers, who cares! It is often easy to take offense to something like this when this is the closest you can get to actually surfing, accept reality and brush it off your shoulders all you old farts with sup’s…
A bunch of whining over nothing. Just go out, get wet, know the rules of the water, and follow them. Granted a lot of SUP’s don’t know the rules in the water but neither do a lot of surfers, spongers, etc… get over it everyone, there’s just going to be more and more people in the water so get used to it.
One word: RESPECT. Something you earn. Something that this website and a lot of the people replying here have very little concept of. While I think the ad is no more offensive than how snowboard magazines used to portray skiers and tight-panted euros, some of the replies here are. I don’t SUP but I have seen many who can do it far better than half the surfers in the water, and probably on this site. Seems to me that the “core” value coming up in today’s youth culture are selfishness and intolerance. While meant to be funny (ha!), Rusty’s ad encourages this. To expect corporate culture to strive for something a little more respectful I guess is unrealistic.
Message to Surfing Magazine: After a few years of following this site and this magazine, I think Surfing Magazine, its writers and its content, is the bottom of the surf media culture barrel in North America. It’s seems for the most part, you’re trying to attract surf goons with your lowest common denominator editorials or trying so hard to be cool it’s embarrasing. The writing alone is terrible. I seem to recall this was once a good read. Maybe I just grew up.
Tim Nolte, the only SUPer I’ve seen that rocks that shit…check him out…he does it in the OBX too…all beach break and he ABSOLUTELY kills it…really fun to watch! AND HE KNOWS THE SURF RULES TOO!
[...] recently stumbled across blogs on the Surfer and Surfing webpages that both condemned and commended the hilarity of Rusty’s most recent advertisement. [...]
First this…then Thalia’s MLK fail…surfers are on a marketing roll…http://www.theinertia.com/business-media/shock-surf-ads-martin-luther-king-black-sale-rusty-sup-ad/
The Inertia is fuckin’ lame. I see them trying to piggy back on every media hub’s comment area. Suckling the teet for any spare drops of milk.
[...] prestigiosa revista Surfing se ha hecho eco de la noticia y publica en su web el siguiente post dedicado a este asunto. También en el foro de Surfer Magazine, uno de los más concurridos por la [...]
Sup? I call them Stand Up Comedians because they are a joke! A person that makes the choice to ride an Sup is the same person that wants to be a police officer or jack their truck up ten feet in the air. Insecure with daddy issues equals SUP!!!!
There is absolutely nothing wrong with aiming an add at a certain genre of surfer. Props to rusty for standing strong in an otherwise bland world of retarded ass ads
You know what the hardest part of SUPing is? Calling your mom and telling her your gay!!!
[...] http://www.surfingmagazine.com [...]
14 year old shortboarders good for using as human butt plugs.