SNOWBOARD HERO (Post 3 of 12)
By Bobby Riley | March 26th, 2010
Page from Soldier CE Guidebook Vol. II
I don’t think there is anyone more heroic to the sport of snowboarding today as Shaun White. His epic year of victories & stories only seems to keep his momentum thriving. Notably earning three golds in three years at the Winter X Games, which includes his unforgettable run in the Men’s SuperPipe where he uncorked his Double McTwist 12, which was pretty epic.
The mystery and swagger of his Red Bull Project X-inspired tricks also afforded him some continued success in the U.S. Snowboarding Grand Prix, winning 4 out of 5 events, earning his spot on the U.S. Snowboarding team and ultimately forging a gold defending his title as champion in the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.
Soldier appreciated working with Shaun’s personality again this past year to drive the “Ride Forever” RED Protection campaign for Burton, which is one of Shaun’s original and primary brand sponsors, if not familiar. As a part of the “Ride Forever” brand innititive we created a global ad campaign for RED that involved some pretty expressive moments from Shaun (as seen in image above). He totally got behind the art direction we set and gave us a lot to work with. One of the thoughts we gave to the riders before the shoot to think about was- “If this was a brand you were starting tomorrow, how would you back it?” It was important for us to make it personal, while still taking performance serious. The ads are actually on stands now in endemic snowboard publications, if interested. I think Shaun has another feature next month. You may remember our leaking of this back in October, including other Burton rider’s like Hana Teter, Peetu Piiroinen, Danny Davis, Kevin Pearce and Mason Aguirre.
Eleven years ago I worked with Shaun more regularly, when I was in brand marketing for the Burton Snowboard company during a very exciting time. We have some others here at Soldier who also worked at Burton during those glory years including our Business Director, Barry Dugan who was actually responsible for signing Shaun White to the Burton team when he served as Global Team Manager. Less glamorously speaking, I was charged with the task to help transition Burton youth, which was called Backhill at that time into a more aspirational and irreverent representation of snowboarding for the brand. As you can imagine, Shaun was a huge asset to this charge.
When I first arrived at Burton, Shaun was only 13 and the default poster child for Backhill in my efforts. He was also the only attention generating rider wearing a RED helmet at Burton (not just in competitions, but all the time when riding). Even when Shaun transitioned from Backhill to the global team, towards the end of my career at Burton he continued to wear a RED helmet all the time when riding. Despite all the negative pressure he got from peers and opinion-makers in/outside the company. It was this type of individuality that was baked into his personality construct then and seems to continue to be true today– to his own success. I actually got a a chance to reflect and share more elaborately on this in an interview by Mark Borden from Fast Company last February, when he was writing an article called Shaun White’s Business Being Red Hot. Although I was not cited in the article, I totally enjoyed chatting with Mark about Shaun’s personality and the challenges for someone like Shaun to scale well while keeping rooted values in place and still have the P&L look good!
For Soldier, we have been acutely aware of Shaun’s authentic through-line in the sport and peronal connection to RED protection. That said, we wanted to have as much confidence and fun with that truth as possible in our creative thinking. As your probably well aware, there are many entities out there pushing Shaun’s likeness, image and identity. He has generated a diverse sponsor mix over the years ranging from cult to classic brands. Some tap into his personality, life and authentic alignment to their brand better than others. For us, it was all about pairing Shaun’s individualistic personality and fervor for the sport alongside his deep relationship with Burton, but perhaps more uniquely with RED
In this belief, I think we managed to create brand positioning clarity with Shaun on behalf of RED that allowed Soldier to broadcast a track of the Shaun White story as helmet pioneer who gave unwavering permission & belief to the notion that protection can elevate performance.
Shaun is one of several ‘Cult of Brand Personality’ stories that we are illuminating in our Consumer Experience Guidebook, Vol. II this month. Our hope is to elevate the conversations around the subject, invite you in to comment and learn more about how attractive/well aligned personalities have the power to drive people towards brand.
Ride Forever Dealer/Consumer Catalog for RED