Buying In - (Page 29) buying in 29 free, branded, product). A skater named Skyler Siljeg was on flow by the age of ten, with almost twenty sponsors, including Jones Soda (which got its name onto Siljeg’s helmet when he was five years old) and Black Flys sunglasses, along with various equipment and apparel makers like Quiksilver. A marketing research firm called Label Networks (specializing in “youth culture marketing intelligence”) was among those attempting to decode skateboarders with a 2005 “consumer research study” of “thousands” of examples of the species and their “influence . . . on youth markets in general,” which it offered for $1,250 a pop to brand managers in the skateboarding and “related lifestyle industries.” The skateboarder resonates as a true individual of a particular type. In a book called The Hero and the Outlaw, two scholars, Margaret Mark and Carol S. Pearson, offered a theory (extrapolated from the work of Carl Jung and others) that revolves around twelve archetypes, explained in a manner that supposedly provides a blueprint to corporate brand managers for understanding and shaping cultural meaning in ways that benefit their products. Among these are several that could be applied to the skateboarder: the Explorer (who is engaged in a journey to discover a better world); the Hero (who “takes great risks in order to contribute to society”); and the Outlaw. The Outlaw seems like the most obvious bet—since the archetype is estranged from the community, flourishing in “hidden and shadowy” places. Mark and Pearson wrote: “While the Explorer also stands at the edges of society, Explorers just want to be free. By contrast, the Outlaw actually wants to disrupt things, shock people, ferment a revolution, get away with something.” Pretty cool, right? But it’s important to add the other piece of Mark and Pearson’s sketch of the Outlaw archetype: “The
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