what can I say to safety manufacturers to get them to advertise?

[skategeezer]

any thoughts???

we'd like to get a few more manu's in there...is it worth pursuing?
I am finding it a pretty tough slog.

Hats off to Pro Designed who consistantly advertise and yes, S-One advertised once.

Would love your comments...

[bredler]

I don't know about the how, but I definetely agree that safety gear is super important and advertising could only help the companies. It's a great way to get the idea planted in youngsters' heads too.

[pithaya]

Hmmm... I think Tony Hawk and all other vert guys already do lots of advertising cause theyre always wearing pads.. whats left is to show kids that pads aren't just for the park. Or even that pads are not just for getting into the park so they use good pads and not just use the pads their parents bought them to use with their little tikes inline skates.

Maybe a street pro should get sponsored and wear pads so kids see its not "lame" but then it'd have to be lots of pros at once because if its only one dude they just say "Hey, P-rod's wearing pads, he must be getting senile or sumthin'!"

Maybe something like "Plastic is tougher than skin" for a slogan with a pic of k-rime's guard rail knee. haha, I know he wasnt "street skating" but theres shock value!

OR
Just take the Hubba approach and show some hot girls in pads doing other hot girls in pads and helmets.

[pithaya]

Oh, and if you want them to advertise in Concrete Wave, then just tell them you have the most images of guys wearing pads and that over 50% of your audience thinks wearing pads while doing performance (as in high performace) skating is necessary and buys pads.

[Momona Boe]

why not contact them aboot a "pad shootout" kinda thing?

That'll get you an article AND a reason for them to advertise

[SCTR9Gold2]

It is definitely worth pursuing. How you would go about doing that is another question, i dont really know an answer for that the moment.......

[mangels]

Maybe you could launch your own "public service" sort of campain. Devote a full page in each issue to testimonials from people that were or weren't wearing pads and helmets when they crashed and how it turned out for them. Obviously a lot of people here on the Fish are passionate about it. I know I have a couple good examples of each that I've posted here - bad crashes from before when I was enlightened and good crashes from after I started wearing pads/helmet. I'd be happy to contribute.

Run those PSA's for a few months and you get people thinking about safety gear. The next logical step for people then would be to start asking questions about who makes the best gear and where to get it. Again, you see postings like that here on the Fish all the time.

Once you've created that mind-set in the community, you can take that to the manufacturers and show them the benefits of getting their products out where people can see 'em and explain why theirs is better. You can show them the PSA's you ran in CW and call their attention to all the discussions about it here on the Fish.

[SpookTheHamster]

Mangels and Boe have very good ideas. Not sure about making the stories full page, though. If you have a community/readers/letters section (I'm sorry to say I've never got my hands on CW), a small box with a reader's crash story would be good.

I like the idea of a pads shootout, biking magazines do it all the time. One issue elbow/knee/wrist, then helmets (DH/street), then gloves, then more specific things like leathers and back protectors.

If you spread it out people might be more inclined to buy it. Instead of thinking "I can't afford all this crap!" They think "well, I've got some money left over this month, I'll buy pads/helmet/gloves/whatever is in this month"

[Rabid Skunk]

Well I think they know that every skater has and will fall. A lot. If one company can seem better than the others, either by improving the product, or promoting it, they could easily get many more customers who would normally do a little research into the subject. Pads aren't the biggest buy yet, so there's still a lot of room to put yourself at the top.

[Justin Metcalf]

Maybe some sort of connection between sliding and companies. Run a few adds showing some knee and helmet slides and try to move away from the basic concept that pads are just for protection. I know that used to turn off the whole "bad ass" appeal of street skating for me so if you could get companies to portray padding in a functional way they might be more appealing. In general though...just portray the use of pads in a way that isn't just "if you don't wear pads god will smite you and horible things will happen". Make them seem more like a part of skating rather than an annoying accessorie (sp?).

[Justin Metcalf]

Hmmm...I just re-read the question and I think I kinda missed the point. Well to get the manufacturers to advertise you'd have to convince them that they would benefit from it. To do that you would have to get readers interested in different padding brands. An easy way to do that...I think it was already mentioned...is to do a sort of head to head comparison of different padding features. I know there's not a lot of stuff to really compare but you could do something along the lines of ventilation, durability etc. Haha and to promote my original idea...run the pictures of padding in use to get people excited about the prospect of different and better equipment.

[mangels]

Originally Posted by stinee

Run a few adds showing some knee and helmet slides and try to move away from the basic concept that pads are just for protection.

... portray padding in a functional way they might be more appealing.

Make them seem more like a part of skating rather than an annoying accessorie (sp?).

Another excellent idea.