Mad Men‘s Don Draper once said: “You are the product. You feeling something. That’s what sells. Not them. Not sex. They can’t do what we do and they hate us for it.”
Somewhere some marketing director for Volcom has this quote scrawled on a sticky note above his or her desk, heeding those words on a daily basis until, voila, the proverbial lightbulb in their brain, like it did for Don during the show finale, went ding.
Volcom’s newest ad for the newest line of brand spanking new boardshorts and bikinis begins as a typical action sports marketing campaign. “Energy drinks, tan guys, butts, more butts…” A detached narrator muses about the boring makeup of your typical surf brand, like he’s in an early aughts “Kid Cuisine” commercial, stepping in for the group of kids who are sick of eating meatloaf every night. But wait, kids, there’s a new way to eat dinner. Only instead of selling dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets as a fun alternative to the norm, it’s swimwear.
And you gotta admit, it’s a pretty genius marketing move.
But in its brilliance lies a shred of irony, no? They’re preaching an anti-conformist alternative to corporate, sell-out surf brands. The type of megacorp that uses hashtags and big money campaigns to sell products to middle-of-America surf wannabes. Yet, at the same time, that’s what they’re doing – selling boardshorts. It’s through a poetic, beautiful, nostalgic ode to the reason we all started surfing (for the fun of it), condemning the big money, or Instagram likes; but at its heart, it’s still an ad. An ad trying to sell you something.
That doesn’t mean I don’t want a pair. Hell, I haven’t even seen the boardshorts. But after watching this, I’m ready to blindly input my debit card number, click size 32, and express delivery that shit!
