One might think sharing a name with one of surfing’s legendary figures would put pressure on a surfer each time he paddles out. And while that might be the case for some, 17 yr. old Nat Young seems to be doing just fine dealing with the added expectation of carrying such a prestigious name. The kid from Santa Cruz just took down a loaded field of surfers to win the 2008 O’Neill Coldwater Classic.

Pressure doesn’t seem to affect the tiny towhead too much, Young found himself behind or excruciatingly close to the other surfers throughout most of the event. “It’s been a long day,” Young said. “I’ve been in my wetsuit since about 7 a.m. and I squeaked through a couple of heats and made the Final and everyone was surfing so good.” And although things got tight, the Steamer Lane local just kept plugging away with endless flare and style on his way to a well-deserved victory. “I’m super excited,” Young said. “I lost in the junior’s and just wanted to do good in this. Just making the Final in this was good, and to win it…”

With a stacked crew of Santa Cruz locals taking part in the Classic, it’s not much of a surprise that bragging rights for the event are now back in S.C. after Jordy Smith’s ‘07 win at Steamer. Bud Freitas, Josh Loya, Jason Collins and the rest all figured to be around at the end, but it was the little guy who came up big when it mattered most.

Congratulations Nat Young, the 2008 O’Neill Coldwater Classic champion!

O’Neill Cold Water Classic Results:
Final:
1 – Nat Young (USA) 13.87
2 – Chris Waring (USA) 13.84
3 – Granger Larsen (HAW) 12.93
4 – Sean Moody (HAW) 11.94

With only two more events on the ASP World Tour remaining following the completion of the Billabong Pro Mundaka, the picture is becoming clearer for many of the WQS hopefuls. The Top 27 from the ‘08 World Tour and the Top 15 ASP WQS surfers, plus three wildcards, will make up the Dream Tour Top 45 for 2009.

Of note for the month of October on the WQS is the ever-popular O’Neill Cold Water Classic in Santa Cruz. The 4-star event at California’s legendary Steamer Lane will get underway in just a couple of weeks. O’Neill has bumped the overall prize money for the Cold Water Classic to a cool $80,000. That’s up $5,000 from last years event, one that saw their own Jordy Smith come away with the victory and join the likes of Tom Curren, Bobby Martinez, Taylor Knox, Martin Potter, Joel Parkinson as past winners of the O’Neill Cold Water Classic.

Stay tuned…

The current ASP WQS Top 20 rankings:
1.Curran,Nathaniel USA 13200
2.Davidson,Chris AUS 12525
3.Boal,Tim FRA 11888
4.Gudauskas,Patrick USA 11438
5.Kerr,Josh AUS 11325
6.Weare,David ZAF 10675
7.Nicol,Yadin AUS 10500
8.Courtney,Drew AUS 10475
9.Lipke,Marlon DEU 10375
10.Henrique,Pedro BRA 10263
11.Bettero,Hizunome BRA 10150
12.Khodr,Jihad BRA 9888
13.Pires,Tiago PRT 9663
14.Paulino,Pablo BRA 9600
15.Bourez,Michel PYF 9600
16.MacDonald,Phillip AUS 9450
17.Emslie,Greg ZAF 9375
18.Sedley,Leigh AUS 9375
19.Gossmann,Shaun AUS 9363
20.Garcia,Sunny HAW 9350

The success of O’Neill’s highly unique Cold Water series continues to grow. With the expansion of the current two-event format to a five-event explosion set to go off in 2009, the Cold Water Classic series is opening up the doors for surfing in several atypical locations, all areas which will likely feature spectacular waves in chilly, challenging conditions. “We wanted to provide a unique and challenging experience for the world’s best surfers,” Bernhard Ritzer, O’Neill Global Event Manager, said. “The Cold Water Classic series is the perfect extension of our existing events - it remains true to our spirit and innovation and adventure, pushing the boundaries and exploring the limits. The CWC series events will take us to incredible and unique locations around the world, where we will let the cold know that we’re not afraid.”

O’Neill’s desire to let the cold know who’s boss next year comes in the form of adding stops in Tasmania, Cape Town, and Nova Scotia, Canada to the already existing stops in Scotland and Santa Cruz. The events held in Santa Cruz and Scotland have been super popular among surfers and this expansion will only go to further interest in the Cold Water Classic series.

The Cold Water Classic series is now set up to kick-off the 2009 year in Tasmania next March. May brings the already existing and highly successful Highland Open event in Scotland. The tour then moves onto Cape Town in June, Canada in October, and then is concluded November in Santa Cruz where the ASP WQS 6-Star event will see the crowning of the Cold Water Classic series king.

The Nova Scotia, Canada stop is exciting for a couple of reasons. For one, it’s not just Canada, it’s Canada in October. There is some serious cold going on there at that time and the possibility of holding the event with snow falling is very real.

On top of the likelihood of the event being held in miserably cold weather (at least for anyone not named Malloy), seeing Canada receive it’s first professional ASP event ever will no doubt draw interest to O’Neill’s series. The number of ultra-stoked surfers who hail from Canada always surprises me and having their country receive it’s first ASP stop ever will only elevate that number and continue to help Canada’s burgeoning surf community to grow.

Good on ya O’Neill for continuing to think outside the box!

As many do in their high-school years, a couple of my best friends and myself decided to take over the world in the form of a start-up clothing company. We actually did really well considering we started the whole project off with limited resources somewhere in the neighborhood of $650. Our marketing skills were obviously somewhat limited, but we were bound and determined to get our name out and simply would not be denied.

We used part of our initial “investment” and had a few thousand stickers printed up in order to put our name out for all to see. After seeing that O’Neill is using a similar - obviously more large-scale strategy - with their recently launched SuperFreak/RuOne online contest, I took a trip back in time to the days where no object within 100 mile radius was immune from the branding method used by a few ultra-dedicated teenagers looking to become moguls at an early age.

Basically whoever prints off the SuperFreak/RuOne creative, found on the O’Neill site, and slaps it in or on the most random and crazy location wins. Entries are to uploaded and submitted online. At the end of the contest surfing phenom Jordy Smith will review and personally hand pick the grand prize winner who will receive a brand new autographed Jordy Smith surfboard, signature boardshort, along with a bountiful apparel package.

O’Neill makes it clear they aren’t looking for entries that deface public property or that will be considered vandalism. My past experience with this technique is that there is really no way to avoid it. Depending on the participation in this contest, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the SuperFreak/RuOne image in some very unexpected places. We think placing one (or more) on the Cardiff Kook would do well.

O’Neilljordy smith

I’m not exactly sure why new apparel startup Amph (short for amphibian) was quietly going along with their business while planning for a stealth launch. Just as the ASR Blog mentioned, I was just recently alerted to Amph through a press release.

It doesn’t really make sense to me that a new company, who has obvious ties to O’neill, would sit out the two biggest trade shows our industry has to offer. None-the-less, Amph is here and after digging around a bit it seems like a fairly interesting model that is poised to progress the sport of surfing.

Pushing the sport of surfing in the name of Amph are Charly Martin, Christophe Allary, Hugo Savalli and Justin Mujica. The four surfers form part of The Amph Program – dedicated to breaking the boundaries of surfing with radical and progressive tricks. With no rules or limitations, the riders will be pushing themselves on the best waves around the world in order to bring something fresh to the sport.

Now here is what I really like about the Amph model, and it’s really a whole other post in itself but I’ll touch on it briefly here. Sponsoring progressive surfers and putting no rules or limitations on them. This is a good move as I see this as the obvious direction that surfing is headed.

I hate to say it because I love surfing for what it is, but you can’t deny that the sport is evolving rapidly. In the last 10 years it’s happened to other sports in our industry, such as skiing and motocross. They both took on serious freestyle movements that refreshed these sports. Surfing is now poised to take on a similar progressive transformation.

With the anticipation of what surfers such as Dane Reynolds and Jordy Smith (not to mention the countless others who aren’t in quite the big spotlight like Jamie O’Brien) are bringing to the table, one can’t help but notice the difference in surfing between the new generation and the old. It’s way more exciting and progressive and you can tell which style the kids prefer. I’m getting ahead of myself though…

Back on the topic of Amph. They are set to launch and should be in stores this coming month. No word yet on which stores will carry this line but I’d imagine they will come out in force as they have O’neill backing them. Will Amph play a role in progressing the sport of surfing? Not really, but it sounds like they’ll be right there to support it.

amph
O’Neill

Lets stop talking about “going green” for a minute and focus on “going Blue.” Project Blue is a campaign to protect our coastlines and oceans. It is ran by Propaganda in order to raise money for the Surfrider Foundation. I found out about it from ads in the Magazines and went online to find more info. It is a unique approach that at first I didn’t quite get, it seemed like there wasn’t enough being done for something as important as protecting our Oceans. So I sent an email to Propaganda and got some good responses that help shed some light on the project.

5ones: Is it ran by Surfrider Foundation or Propaganda HQ?

Propaganda: Project BLUE is run by Propaganda, this is a commercial initiative and we are using product to raise money for Surfrider Foundation. To make this effort work for everyone involved we set it up as a campaign driven by our brand partners.

5ones: Are you actively seeking partnerships with companies or letting them come to you?
Propaganda: We are seeking partnerships but only in select catogories. O’Neill has just signed on and they will be another great partner to help drive this effort to raise funds for Surfrider Foundation.

5ones: Do you have more companies being announced soon? if so you don’t need to tell us which ones, it just seems like there isn’t a lot of 3rd party company participation when the cause is such a noble one and so close to home.

Propaganda: O’Neill is the newest company to join our group and we may have one more to announce before the end of the year. That quite possibly be the last one at least for a couple of years. All our partners are experiencing positive response and support from retailers and consumers. I think we’ll expand the product offerings within the partnership group before we bring on more partners.

5ones: What is the percent of proceeds donated to protecting the ocean from each sale?

Propaganda: Rather than go with a percentage of sales, we opted for a hard figure of $2 per item. This number, while may seem small, is easily absorbed in the retail price and still keeps the product desirable by consumers and retailers. Plus, the real bang is that the brands have identified volume based products to generate money. For example, the Reef Fanning is the top selling sandal for Reef. Rather than create a new sandal, they felt it better to make a project BLUE Fanning to really make an impact with this effort. And the consumer is sending a message, project BLUE Fanning was the #1 sandal on Swell.com for the month of July. This is a good sign that consumers are looking for ways to get involved with Surfrider Foundation and helping to protect our oceans. Project BLUE is pulling together manufacturers, retailers and consumers to help our environment.

5ones:Anything else you feel we should cover please let us know?

Propaganda:Project BLUE is not about consumerism, its about responsible consumerism. As consumers we have the power to make changes, every little thing helps. Changing light bulbs, recycling and buying products that are environmentally friendly and/or that contribute to helping the environment are part of that change. We can buy a better future.

All in all I am stoked on the idea and I now that I understand their goals I can totally see their game plan. The Fanning sandal has literally become an Icon. Billabong had the best selling boardshort of last year, and Electric, Nixon, Dakine and O’Neill are all perfect partners. I think it is a great idea to create proceeds off of volume and off of already top selling brands and products

The only thing I could find that maybe could be done better is if these partners all had prominent banners with links to info about Project Blue linking users to the site. Billabong, Nixon and all the partners are getting an unbelievable amount of traffic to their sites and it would be cool if they directed some of that to the cause.

See Current Product Line at Be True to Blue or at Swell

And here is more info to where you can get involved

Propaganda
Surfrider Foundation
O’Neill

O’Neill is preparing to launch a new program called ‘Generation Next’ that will team high school students up with company executives so they can get a better understanding of the career options in the action sports apparel industry. The program will focus on creative elements such as; graphic design, apparel design, marketing, and merchandising. Generation Next is set to launch on August 7th, 2007.

Those lucky enough to be selected for the program will shadow O’Neill executives for a four-week period. They won’t just be observing either; students will get hands-on experience designing apparel, planning events, and creating advertising campaigns.

This will be a huge opportunity for those fortunate few that are selected to be in the program. I wish there was something like this available when I was in high school. Not only would the experience be awesome but making connections with these executives is priceless. Remember kids; it’s not what you know, but who you know and how well you know them.

Those interested in applying will need to send an email with 150 words or less and an image to GenerationNext@ONeillClothing.com by July 20th. The email needs to be titled “Generation Next” and what department you’re interested in learning more about.

O’Neill