Quiksilver Takes a New ‘Wave’ Approach
You’re on a boat in the South Pacific. Waterfalls cascade down hillsides and into the warm, clear sea. Your goal is to find a perfect wave and surf it.
If you don’t find one, no problem. You can go fishing, diving or snorkeling instead.
This business trip from heaven is part of a two-year undertaking by surfwear company Quiksilver International to deepen its identification with the sport. The search for “unsurfed waves” is expected to result in a new line of clothing and an adventure vacation business.
The trip is raising Quiksilver’s profile with environmentalists. Besides Quiksilver executives, photographers, marine biologists and six-time world champion surfer Kelly Slater and Lisa Anderson, four-time women’s world champ, have been on board.
The trip, which will cost $3 million in the first year, indicates the intensity of competition in the surfwear business, where even Quiksilver, as the market leader, needs to continually buff its image to remain relevant to the fickle teens who buy its clothes.
“The Quiksilver Crossing,” as the journey is called, is notable for its duration and its varied mission. Crew members are also gathering environmental data and mingling with island natives, sometimes discussing whether land should be set aside for surfing.
“The best way for us to grow is by having more areas available for surfing,” said Bruce Raymond, managing director of Australia-based Quiksilver International.
The journey, which began in March, has yielded a bonanza of marketing opportunities, allowing photographers to shoot Quiksilver-clad surfers in “tropical dreamscapes,” said Robert B. McKnight Jr., chief executive of Huntington beach-based Quiksilver Inc., a trip sponsor that owns the Quiksilver name and trademarks in the United States and Mexico.
Surfers wearing Quiksilver board shorts or Roxy bikinis--the company’s juniors line--ride waves and wander beaches while photographers snap pictures for magazine ads. “It’s perfect for product profiling, it’s great for action shots, it’s great for everything,” he said.
The new line of products linked to the boat trip will include board shorts, jackets and travel bags. “The Crossing” collection will be in stores next spring, the company said.
By next summer, Quiksilver Inc. plans to launch its own “outdoor adventure” travel agency. “We want to be in the travel business, to put people in these places,” McKnight said.
Business aside--if that’s possible--the trip has an almost mythic quality about it. It’s about the search for that perfect wave, that never-surfed slice of the ocean.
“Everybody dreams about doing stuff like that,” said Richard Allred, owner of the surfwear company Toes on the Nose in Costa Mesa. “It’s a dream Quiksilver can share with the whole industry.”
But perfection is elusive. During Slater’s stints on board, the surf was wimpy. “We kind of got skunked,” the young surf pro said.
The trip also has an environmental component. Quiksilver invited aboard marine biologists who are gathering data for Reef Check, a coral reef monitoring program that funnels information about pollution and fish to scientists and governments worldwide. The biologists, in turn, are training surfers to help examine the reefs.
“It’s a teaching assignment, even though it’s a pretty plushy one,” said former surfing champ Richard Grigg, a University of Hawaii professor of oceanography who is directing the scientific work. Information about the Quiksilver-Reef Check connection will appear on the hang tags of some Quiksilver clothing.
“It’s a new, innovative approach to both marketing and education,” Grigg said, “the marriage of two things that would otherwise be separate.”
In the process, student surfers gain a deeper understanding about their playground, he said.
“I take them underwater and teach them the names of things,” Grigg said. “It’s literally putting your head underwater and saying, ‘What’s going on under here?’ Pretty soon, they stop thinking about ‘Well, I’m here to get my picture taken,’ and a whole world opens up.”
But the environmental work is a relatively small part of Quiksilver’s adventure, which McKnight said is meant to promote products and create new business opportunities.
The boat, launched from Cannes, France, passed the Great Barrier Reef and moved on to New Guinea and Tahiti. It is currently in French Polynesia.
So far, the crew has found more than 18 remote locations with perfect surf breaks and receptive islanders, McKnight said. With the demand for exotic surf trips growing, Quiksilver could use the Indies Trader over the next 10 years to identify more exceptional surf areas. Then the company’s travel agency could book surfing tours for its customers and sell them clothes for the journey, he said.
To keep these dream locales from being overrun with tourists, and to maintain an edge on the competition, Quiksilver is keeping mum about precisely where the boat stops.
“This is like the equivalent of helicopter snowboarding, but it’s surfing,” McKnight said. “Billabong doesn’t know where it is, Rip Curl doesn’t know where it is. . . . We do.”
