What is the Don’t Do It Army, you ask? Well, it seems today that companies are becoming more aware of their grassroots and preserving the soul and culture of skateboarding. By doing so, this means trying to stop the “infiltrating” large sporting good companies from getting into the skateboard industry. Consolidated skateboards, out of Santa Cruz, have taken this view to a whole new level. They have created an ad campaign titled, “Don’t Do It!” They have even gone as far as kicking off Emeric Pratt and Seth Mcallum from their team, for being sponsored by Nike SB.
From their website it reads:
“This website is dedicated to keeping sporting good companies from infiltrating our surf, skate, and snow industry. It is targeted at keeping them from "taking" from our industry, after we have built and cared for it with blood, sweat, and tears.
Sure, there are many different opinions of what people consider "selling out" to be. Most are harmless, and the benefits and pitfalls are subject to argument. For example, a soda company-harmless. Even a car company, a video game, or a TV show. While these things may seem lame, and have nothing to do with our industry, it's all subject to personal opinion, and the bottom line is that these companies are not "taking" anything away from us, and at the same time, are willing to "give" for the association. They are not a competitor and don't intend to be a competitor in our industry. Sporting goods companies' intentions are solely to take.”
Clearly aimed at Nike, this campaign supposedly includes every other company that is a large sporting goods company. It’s unclear when or why all of this began.
Todd Bratrud, graphic artist for Consolidated, designed a dunk colorway for Nike, now known as Send Help dunks. One other nickname for this dunk was the “Consolidated Dunk.”
In action with the new campaign Consolidated has sprung up with a new shoe line entitled “Drunks.” Apparently, a manufacturing company in Indonesia was hired to make knock off Send Help dunks, but replace the Nike swoosh with a curved banana. You can already buy them at Consolidated in Santa Cruz and wide spread distribution is expected before the end of the year.
This ad is currently being run in Thrasher Magazine, which ironically enough has a Nike SB blazer with its name on it. The ad was turned down by many other magazines due to possibility of revenue being revoked, because Nike has ads in their magazines.
Is the Don’t Do It Army aimed at skateboarding only? No, in their mission statement it also includes snowboarding and surfing. What about dirt bike riding and BMX? They may not be considered board spots, but they are all under the same category of extreme sports. I don’t think that Consolidated would support Osiris for starting to produce MX boots, but yet they probably support Etnies that makes BMX, surfing, snowboarding and skateboarding shoes. Would Ipath be considered a core skate company? They only make skateboarding shoes, but their products are sold at Ross, while Nike SB is only available at skate shops. Consolidated contradicts itself by saying that companies should be skater owned, but yet being a company owner and being on the corporate side of skateboarding goes against “everything a skateboarder should be about.” Skateboarder or not, the business depends on the person. A skateboarder could be just as likely to rip you off as the next guy.
The way I see it is that Consolidated is going about this the wrong way. Making stickers, printing up t-shirts, flooding MySpace and the rest of the internet is only spreading the word of Nike. People hear about what is going on and check out Nike SB for their own opinion.
Nike pays and accommodates their riders very well, they’ve pushed the technology in skate shoes as we know it and are continuing to do so. As long as Nike is giving back to skateboarding then why not buy their product? I could understand where all of this was coming from if Nike just put out a bunch of bad quality product, but they don’t. They have upped the standard a few times in the passed years. People have been skating Nikes since the 80’s. Nike SB took the shoes that people skated in, that weren’t made for skateboarding, such as the basketball model known as the “dunk” and remade it for skateboarding.
“I read your article about the don’t do it campaign. The don’t do it campaign isn't anti big business and its not anti making money. The premise behind it is that the large sporting goods companies are trying to cash in on something that they didn't build.”
– Steve "Birdo" Guisinger, owner of Consolidated Skateboards
http://www.skateboardworks.com/archives/2006/07/birdo_explains.php
So they’re for snowboarding companies, but not people who are into track and skateboarding? I really can’t see how snowboarding helped build the skateboard industry. If anything, it’s the other way around.
Many people bring up that who is in the shoe business isn’t important and bring up the issue of Chinese deck manufacturers pushing manufacturers in the US out of the industry. Consolidated boards are made overseas and their owner is running a Don’t Do It campaign? That’s very hypocritical. In Birdo’s letter, from the above link, it is very obvious that he is only talking about Nike. He doesn’t mention Adidas, Reebok, Puma or anyone else. Neither does he mention anyone else in his campaign, for that matter. More reason to believe this is just a grudge match. Birdo is willing to go out of business for his campaign also. This has been called a David vs. Goliath type ordeal, the only difference this time being the outcome won’t be in favor for David (Consolidated).
So are you a new member of the Don’t Do It Army or do you think they’re wasting their time? Who knows what is going to happen with this campaign. Possibly other companies that feel the same way that Consolidated does will pick up on it and it will grow. Or it could just dwindle down into nothingness. Only time will tell…
