Bryan Iguchi goes Black – for Visa

In another life, I (Bill) was part of the PR team for Burton Snowboards (around the same time Jake Burton was in the Amex commercials).  Long before that though, I knew who Bryan Iguchi was… was definitely an innovator who was bringing some unique elements to riding at the time.

Fast forward 10 years.  I still work in action sports, but it’s a different industry now in a variety of ways… especially in leveraging action sports to promote non-endemic brands.  With that in mind, I bring you the Iguchi ad for Visa I saw in the May issue of Outside magazine.

While mainstream media gravitates towards guys such as Shaun White and Ryan Sheckler, it’s interesting to see some brands, such as Visa, target the outdoors set using a legend to resonate with a different consumer.  I don’t think this would have happened 10+ years ago and I applaud Visa (or their agency) for it.  Iguchi is definitely a respected rider and while he’s not an X Games personality today, he definitely resonates with a lot of people (such as myself) who remember snowboarding back when it was considered “extreme.”

Note to other brands looking to leverage action sports to sell their goods:  It’s not always the athletes that win the major events that influence the core consumers.

~ by doubleb on June 3, 2009.