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selfish short term kite industry

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longwhitecloud
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selfish short term kite industry

Postby longwhitecloud » Thu Sep 20, 2018 2:40 pm

if u have kited for some time you will have noticed a big shift upwards in the average age of kitesurfers

it seems the industry targets middle aged wealthy men with their marketing these days with a lot more focus than they used to

they can do that

best died, cab many left, other kites companies now really struggle with the high risk of the kite industry

kiting has also become super fragmented thx to effort political kite pressures

you dont need an industry but industry can really push exciting stuff onto young riders to get them stoked.

so did they forget that by attracting youth into kiting they will building future higher income customers?



yup....

slingshot seem to be one of few brands with youth based marketing.

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Re: selfish short term kite industry

Postby Mossy 757 » Thu Sep 20, 2018 4:49 pm

longwhitecloud wrote:
Thu Sep 20, 2018 2:40 pm
if u have sailed for some time you will have noticed a big shift upwards in the average age of sailors

it seems the industry targets middle aged wealthy men with their marketing these days with a lot more focus than they used to...
So it is, so it's always been.

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Re: selfish short term kite industry

Postby madworld » Thu Sep 20, 2018 5:01 pm

41482178_2232643266981344_2783693236546306048_n.jpg

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Re: selfish short term kite industry

Postby ap888 » Thu Sep 20, 2018 6:00 pm

Lol I just buy good kites don’t pay much attention to marketing :baby:

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Re: selfish short term kite industry

Postby bri7 » Thu Sep 20, 2018 8:12 pm

THere was a time when you couldn't see a kite advert without the obligatory wife beater, baseball cap & slider. Industry must of realized to sell completely overpriced products, kites that have doubled in price and boards that come with no pads you need to market to a more mature market. Trouble is those people see through the bullshit and just wait for the new gear to go on sale the year after.

If in the 14 year ive been kiting considering the amoun adverts telling me of kite tweaks that tell me I can get upwind a bit better I would be going backwards. Or the board went through shop I'd be slicing butter everytime I went out.

Yep the gear improves and we still go kiting but jesus the price of kit is ridiculous

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Re: selfish short term kite industry

Postby jumptheshark » Thu Sep 20, 2018 9:55 pm

Knew this was a LWC post from the title.

Dude, The industry is not some sentient being. Its a collections of companies who are in direct competition with one another. They steal each others ideas and talent whenever possible. There is more fashion than substance in kite evolution when looked at in yearly increments. Most of the major influential changes come from small players (strutless kites and hydrofoiling). The bigger players usually screw it up for a couple years before they finally come up with a decent product.

Quit bitching about "the industry" and just ride. The sport has never really had all that much youth and most of the ones you see in the media are trust funders.

Find some stoke!

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Re: selfish short term kite industry

Postby Toby » Thu Sep 20, 2018 10:35 pm

Who pays the most for gear?
These customers get scared away with hardcore stuff...no one would pick up the sport just seeing Handle passes, sliders and huge megaloops.

The money gets attracted with smooth tricks, flying above the water, happy and smiling people!
These guys see injuries as their biggest fear.

The sport needs to attract everything...and that’s what most companies do.

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Re: selfish short term kite industry

Postby bragnouff » Thu Sep 20, 2018 10:38 pm

Attracting kids into the sport was always a challenge since companies never bothered providing gear suitable for them.
It's only in recent years that manufacturers started to offer very small size kites, not deliberately targeting the kids market, but filling the needs of surfboard riders and mostly hydrofoil riders. Now that there is actually a plethora of options for 4m sized kites, it all becomes a possibility for 10 y.o. kids to get into it.

ap888 wrote: Lol I just buy good kites don’t pay much attention to marketing :baby:
That's a bit of a problem, because the companies making good kites sometimes get pushed out of business when they can't (or simply don't) compete on the marketing level with the big companies that make nowhere near as good kites, but push them harder.
I'll take the example of Globe Kites over the last 10 years. The Sonic/and Trix kites were in so many ways much superior to the similar models from Best (Waroo) or Slingshot (TD, Rev, Link) or Cabrinha (xbow, switchblade), and cheaper by a few hundred bucks. It kept on going like that for many years, refining some good designs, maintaining a more reasonable price, pushing for stronger kites and longer lifecycles, yet eventually, GK faded away and those good kites can't be bought anymore.
Wainman used to have a serie of good kites. They didn't feel the need to completely redesign every year, only refine when needed, and not on a set timeline to artificially make last year's models obsolete.
There are of course some other reasons for a company to go out of business, but you'll see my point. As much as you don't pay attention to marketing, it still defines heavily what gear is available to buy.

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Re: selfish short term kite industry

Postby longwhitecloud » Thu Sep 20, 2018 11:59 pm

well i think they focus on short term growth today and looking back we had a very healthy scene of younger riders, all influenced by industry ( old mags show this).. today virtually none.

short term thinking imo, and ultimately why we were in the situation where we had a comp a few months ago and there were hardly any younger riders at all, i do my own thing no doubt( i ride v old kit and just dont care) but i see the influence industry had on me when i was younger, getting me and my friends motivated and stoked.

as for scaring off customers, i dont see that being possible in any youth market

having said that, i never bought into the andre phillips/ kitesc00p thing.. was soo lame that at one point i was hearing wakestylers go on about how it was too windy lol! ( at woodies)

i think that damaged youth kiting too as younger riders were intimidated into looking cool instead of getting on and riding however they wanted to...it was a good focus influence to start with just went too far.. $600 boots that cost $45 to produce dont help... #fail

i just looked through some old mags.... soooo much more youth focused.

kiting is more than youth but right now it seems to like to exclude them way more than they used to.

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Re: selfish short term kite industry

Postby surfinsmiley » Fri Sep 21, 2018 12:57 am

At our local beach there are 20 or so core kiters. all 50 plus years old.
There are probably 100 more casual summer kiters. One teenager a couple of 40 plus year old women and pretty much everyone else in the casual group are 40 plus.

You can buy old kites from our group of core kiters in great condition for a few hundred bucks. If any of the young crew were actually interested, there are kites and teachers and conditions aplenty.

I think most young crew are happy riding the skatepark that over looks our kite beach.
Just never really see any interest from the young fellas...

So, the marketing is just aiming at the people that actually want to ride kites!


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