Monday, June 11, 2018

Willy Santos #2.



Hot Dog.

I guess when you mention that a hot dog company sponsored a few skateboarders ten years ago, you have to scan an ad in since nobody else remembered it. Ball Park was doing some youth oriented product placement in the action sports market and paid for a year's worth of ads in Transworld. The advertisements featured short interviews with a number of skaters, including Tyler Hendley, Richie Belton, Brandon Turner, Andrew Cannon, Stu Graham, Peter Smolik, and Jason Adams. Sadly, there were a lack of questions about grilling and cooking habits in many of the ads. I suppose this is a silly type of sponsorship, but it feels a little cooler than being sponsored by an energy drink, department store or fast food chain.

Maybe I should put together a week of content focusing on corporate sponsorships in the future.

The photo is by Blair Alley.

Transworld - November 2009 Volume 27 Number 11

4 comments:

Henry said...

It's actually not that bad. I pictured something corny, like holding a hot dog and giving a thumbs up or something.
Did you watch / listen to the Tony Hawk Nine Club? "Here's a check for four million dollars"(!)

Tank said...

It seems like Transworld is sponsoring the interview, not the skaters. That's a lot different. Every magazine has always had suspect or corporate sponsorship/ads.

Unknown said...

Great follow up on the hdog thing

Justin said...

Yeah, this blurs the line between ad and editorial a bit. It's definitely a paid page in the magazine, but Ball Park was smart enough to have the Transworld staff help out with the content. That's why it works on some level, whereas something like the Got Milk ads are corny. Back then you had a little leeway for who you could accept ads from, but now to keep print media going I don't begrudge mags for taking money for weird stuff, ie. Weedmaps.