And report to legendary rocket-SUP pilot Erik "Elo" Logan…
By now we’ve all absorbed the E-Lo interview. Goddamn it he seemed likeable.
The sorta bloke who’d come to repossess your house but end up getting you to play on his Thursday night touch footy team too.
Was it a tactic? To Kill Chas and DLS with kindness?
“You get a car! You get a car! You get a car!”
I dunno, man.
Life is tactics. Everybody’s coming with an angle. At least he’s up front with his.
How to respond?
A stark choice emerges for the Grit. To work with E-Lo and the WSL (is Wozzle, is Woz) to try and affect incremental change.
Chart the middle course. Share knowledge. Live in peace.
Or, to tear the fucking joint down if can’t be in our exact image.
The realist or the radical.The path for BG remains unclear.
But E-LO’s intentions for the Woz are as clear as his dazzling alabaster teeth. Drag it square in to the mainstream, where it will compete with the likes of the NBA, NFL, Premier League etc, conglomerates with budgets and resources comparable to small European countries, for audience attention and dollars.
There’s work to do. The Woz is an unwieldy beast. It has a disparate online presence. Different formats. Different audiences. Endemic media stuck to the ship’s hull like barnacles.
How to get them all on board?
Well, the Content and Marketing handbook says that to truly engage your audience in a meaningful way, you need to have a defined personality. To state who you are and what you stand for. A singular identity that should make your organisation immediately recognisable, even if you remove the logo
A tone of voice. Tone dictates personality which dictates purpose. It’s central to your organisation’s goals.
Which makes this recent job ad all the more interesting.
Role: Creative Copywriter
Brand: World Surf League
Location: Santa Monica, CA
Summary: Develop the brand tone of voice for all fan/consumer touch points with a focus on marketing/brand campaigns and our owned and operated products (website, app, etc.).
You can read the whole thing here.
Tone guidelines. Positioning statements. Bot scripts. It’s a fascinating peek behind the veil. The magician showing his cheat sheet just for that split second. Modern day alchemy to make the soulless corporate seem human.
So what would your tone be for the Woz if you got the role?
Who embodies the organisation? What personality is going to see it get traction with, say, middle America?
Kelly and E-Lo, the charming alabaster princes? Turps and Get Sent, the loyal stoners? Chas and Reilly, the cut off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face radicals?
Or a mix of all three?
What do I think? Well, if you need a join the dot kit to tell your story, you’ve already failed. You can’t manufacture magic, E Lo.
Stop messing around with this corpo bullshit and just put the best surfers in the best waves with a steady livestream, and let the rest take care of itself.
But fuck, what would I know?
streaming surf competitions to middle America will get their attention about as much as when I click past golf on the tv guide. not enough “constant” action to keep anyone interested unless they’re already emotionally invested.
2019 NFL draft had a higher viewership than any of the NHL or NBA playoff games on the same night
People are simple, getting simpler
The WSL wants Michael Bay to adapt a Jorge Luis Borges story
We gripe, but they won’t succeed
Haha! Fucken A
Wait, I thought this was the position Chas was interviewing for? He nailed it asking the astrological sign question.
I would definitely consider this job as working for ‘the enemy.’ The Wsl ( Eric Logan, Dirk Ziff) are not your friends. They want more people surfing, more crowded line-ups- more media attention. They are not in this to help the everyday surfer.
Idk, this isn’t especially different from any other corporate copywriting call I’ve ever seen. And at least, you’d be writing about surfing, rather than like, Idk, medical devices or whatevs. I’ve written some brain-meltingly boring white papers and brand copy. It ain’t the funnest, but it pays well enough to keep doin’ the fun stuff, so.
Yes Jen, but you’d be working for the ‘opposition’…..
But that’s the thing, surfing’s not like every other corporate copywriting gig. I work in science comms for an org that’s vastly different to the woz but also similar in that it can produce incredible things that are unscripted and unpredictable. Science happens when science happens, you can’t force it. But in recent years we have gone from being a unique, quirky institution that accepts and promotes that fact to a strict, disciplined and corporatised model full of mar-comm gurus pushing asinine weasel words (“building tomorrow’s future for everybody”) and bullshit activations that every shithouse corporate does and which people don’t respond to anyway. It a) has sucked the life out of what we do and b) is ineffective. I hate seeing it happening to surfing too.
Nothings gonna suck the life out of surfing.
I believe it is simply not a “sport” that is able to be put into a format that gets the numbers they want. No one hits a ball, no one wins or loses demonstrably and you can’t fit it into a set time slot. The only way forward is to tone down the numbers they are chasing.
Melted Ice Dancing.
Unsynchronised swimming
Aquatic gymnastics
“it was heaps better half an hour ago”
Closely followed by “I got pitted on the end section of that last one”. Na ya fucken didnt cunt. Saw it with me own fucken eyes!
You shoulda been here yesterday!
“ i’ll wait till the tide fills in”
Get that one-armed golfer involved, live on the beach, trailing round finding the pressers, juuuuust in camera shot.
I didn’t find Elo likeable. Anyone who keeps saying, “good question” has something to hide. Most importantly, he’s a VAL with an ego. I want him as far away from me as possible.
And keep him away from the kids.
Nice Avatar
Which explains why I’ll never be a successful businessman/politician/journalist etc, even the most demure flash of panties has me reaching for the engagement ring.
Remain critical of anyone who wants to share your “wave”. Find a wife who doesn’t want to and wants you to have them all to yourself. Local business around these parts, sells lots of boards and lots of suits and such. When the waves get good, he could rent hundreds of suits and foamies/logs… he says sorry we are not renting it is not safe… and he does that for us, the same people he treats well when we are buying from him.. you could be a businessman, you just have to treat people right and not think you have to own fucking everything.
It’s funny how many people have mentioned the “good question” tic — I barely noticed it, I think because it’s so incredibly common in interviews. Mostly, it’s people stalling to figure out what to say. Obvs, Idk his motivation for using it, but I hear it literally all the time when I interview people.
Sorry ELo, but no amount of ‘creative copywriting’ is going to get Nance and Rand from Idaho sitting in front of the TV – Bud Light in hand – hooting as G-Med punts a huge backside something or spewing vitriol when the judges score Italo’s 7.00 a 6.35
unless it is in a pool with sharks, now that would be some magic
Err, yeah, they been doin it a while now.it‘s pretty fuken good!
GMed is into it
That’s good enuff for me
“nance and rand in Idaho” are representative of middle America. Are you middle America?
I wish!
I hear they got some good gosh darn, eatin, out dem diners drive inns and dives
And dem waves pools are coming’!!!
Bex is a flavortown local
Darn tootin!
“Stop messing around with this corpo bullshit and just put the best surfers in the best waves with a steady livestream, and let the rest take care of itself.”
Bingo !
And good job SA !
Their only job is to crown a World Champ. Full fucken stop.
That’s what Dirk bought. The rights to be able to do that. Nothing else.
For now. #rebeltour