A mountain and wave go a long way
My first regular hourly job (after being a little league umpire and a caterer) was working at a surf shop in San Diego in 2004. My responsibilities were few and the pay fit them. But it was a blast. I merchandised shipments and answered questions about surfboards and wetsuits in between greeting customers and watching every new surf video.
I quickly learned that in the world of surf shops, sales reps are the shit. They’re cool characters who drive up and down the coast showing off the goods that will come out in the next few months. Where’d they come from and where are they going next? Who knows. Cool as shit.
They’re also your avenue to discounts on anything you could possibly want, a critical benefit when you have a habit and you’re making $.50 above minimum wage.
The rep for Quiksilver came by one afternoon and was telling us about some recent success of the brand. He says, “A mountain and wave go a long way.”
Quiksilver is one of the oldest surf brands in the world, founded in the early 70s with a focus on core surf equipment, specifically boardshorts. Since its early days, which included a founder forcing a would-be distributor to eat a doily to prove he was serious about taking the company to the U.S., the brand has been involved in the athletes and events that help form surfers’ collective understanding of what it means to rip.
I’ve been reading Les Binet and Sarah Carter’s How Not to Plan, and what the rep was talking about was distinctiveness. (My shorthand for distinctiveness is “acting like yourself.” I’m sure someone out there has a sharper definition). The brand’s mountain and wave logo is as iconic as any in surfing. It’s a mark that can be seen from a mile away and has remained mostly unchanged for decades.
As the authors cite from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, “Successful brands don’t tend to be differentiated from competitors.” And Quiksilver isn’t. Its products are very similar to competitors’ products. When one releases a groundbreaking innovation, the rest have it the next selling season.
Being different from other surf brands isn’t what makes it cool; being clearly itself as a representation of a lifestyle makes it cool. The product is just one manifestation of that.
Where it lacks in differentiation, it makes up with a core story of what it means to live a lifestyle around surfinf, consistently presented, all punctuated by a mountain and a wave.
