Tony Hawk: What Marketers Can Learn from Skateboarders

People may not have strong feelings about your product, but they can develop strong feelings when you link your product to a cultural phenomenon.

Tony Hawk’s skateboarding skill has marketed everything from bagel bites to Velcro wallets. How does skateboarding strengthen the branding of something utterly unrelated to the sport? For many, skateboarding seems like a cool, exclusive club, so when advertising features skateboarding in an authentic way, brands and consumers both have a good experience. Jeep is another brand that has used Tony Hawk’s skateboarding and other unrelated sports to create a strong cultural identity.

People don’t generally have strong feelings about SUVs as a functional product category, and yet Jeep has become a brand that people care about deeply. Jeep owners even give each other the “Jeep wave,” which makes...