so how many of you guys know that Gucci bought out Volcom for $608mil...... what do you think there future and the sponsors is gonna be now!?!
More money for the sponsors. I personally hate the guys on the local volcom team here. But over-all the company has been good to surfing... So, while volcom probably makes much more off of its clothing lines, the surf sponsorships should still be at the heart of it all.... I mean, In-Bev bought Budweiser a couple of years ago, so nothing surprises me. And while we all thought that the Euros would chnage the recipe of classic busweiser, in reality, nothing happened. The only national thing that really changes is that now, our budweiser reps sell Stella.... So hopefully the volcom thing will be similar... A larger company to shell out more funding for lower level sponsorship, while getting more international exposure.... It will be fine. At this point, all volcom is good for is a cool nose sticker for their riders and some decent shorts... but other than that, its more glam than content from them anyway.
Gucci buys you---> instant baller status. Im going to go buy a bunch of ill-fitting volcom jeans now!
Oh man, those guys freaking own Pipe these days. I think it's a little f'd up that a single company has managed to effectively secure land rights to one of the world's premier breaks. That's life though...don't see it changing so no point in getting too peeved about it. That being said, I do dig the fact that they support non-cookie cutter types. Ozzie Wright comes to mind. They seem to enjoy working with a pretty diverse range of people, and I respect that.
Its the American way... Bigger companies buy out smaller companies - happens every day. I think generally, you lose a little of the core value of the company when it is controlled by an external source motivated mainly by profit margins rather then what the initial developers sought it out to be.
I agree that the the "core" of the brand will be somewhat lost. But lets face it Volcom sold out to hte masses years ago. I went to ****s SPorting Goods to buy golf balls as i walked to the golf section i passed the "water sport" stuff there it was a rack of VOlcom board shorts right next to the Speedo beach volleyball shorts. Took my daughter into Macy's and there next to Hurley Quik, No fear Billabong and others is Volcom. Same thing happened to RVCA after Billabong bought them, they started pushing the product line into mainstream stores instead of real srf shops located in beach towns. There's no money to be made in "core" anymore, you need soccer moms with credit cards to buy your products along with guys that actually use them.
Precisely. Without those soccer mom's quiksilver, rip curl, and billabong certainly wouldn't be shelling out money to run contests. Not saying a agree with it, but it's the state of affairs right now.
Thanks for this post!!! Offically, NOT buying Volcom anymore. The company may remain the same but the "Youth Against Establishment" vibe is a f*cking joke.. GUCCI, how soul less. As always the mighty green dollar speaks, sell your soul for a buck. Now we can be as generic as the rest of them. Let's all get blow outs and Volcom side bags....yuck!!!
