Mammoth Mountain, one of my favorite places in the world, a place I used to call home and a resort of which I currently have a season pass to, recently ran this billboard on the 405 freeway in Southern California. David and Goliath, the resort's El Segundo based ad agency turned the billboard into a life size replica of a piece of the wall from the mountain's Super Duper Pipe and put a life size mannequin -- equipped with gear from Quiksilver and Vans -- posed airing out above the deck. I am all for making the medium itself be part of your message and I think the strategy behind this billboard is really cool but the execution...well, the execution sucks.How does it suck? let us count the ways. first of all, the mannequin performing the backside air has super wack steez. I will illustrate below with other examples of bad method/backside air style:
Now that you have seen the bad, here are a couple of examples of a proper backside air as demonstrated by Terje Haakonsen and Jamie Lynn:
Secondly, the "snowboarder" on the billboard was getting two, maybe four feet of air at the most. For a campaign with the tag "Play Big," this snowboarder was certainly doing the opposite. below is an example of what it is like to really "play big" out of a halfpipe as demonstrated by recent Fast Company coverboy, Shaun White:
The moral of the story is...Whoever is executing your super cool idea, make sure they know what the hell they are doing in relation to the subject matter.
In spite of a shitty execution, the idea was very cool and props to Mammoth Mountain for all of the ad dollars they are spending. I see your emails in my inbox and banners on the internet and they make me want to get out there and shred. See you soon.
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