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Quiksilver is stepping up marketing of its Hawk Clothing line

In its bid to snag a chunk of the skateboard apparel market, Quiksilver Inc. is kicking into high gear this month with the planned opening of a New Jersey store devoted to its new Hawk Clothing brand and a big promotional push for the Hawk line by retailer Pacific Sunwear of California. Huntington Beach-based Quiksilver, which acquired the Hawk brand from legendary skateboarder Tony Hawk and his family in March, previewed the new expanded Hawk Clothing apparel and accessories line at the MAGIC show in Las Vegas in September and later the Action Sports Retailer Trade Show in San Diego. “Skateboard shops want it because it’s Tony Hawk; every department store wants it, but we have to keep the distribution clean,” said Dave Rosenberger, national sales manager for Hawk Clothing. For now, the company is striving to limit its retail distribution to core skate shops and to specialty stores such as Pacific Sunwear.

The division has grown to 12 employees and 17 sales representatives. It is looking to hire a marketing director to assemble a team of skateboard riders including at least three marquee team members as well as regional members. The company also is advertising in skateboard publications such as Thrasher, Transworld Skate and 411 Video magazine. Also, Hawk Clothing is sponsoring events nationally and in Canada and Europe such as the Quik Cup in France. Meanwhile, Tony Hawk is touring the country’s skate and surf shops as a Quiksilver spokesman and is expected to be in New Jersey this month for the opening of the first Hawk Skate store. Quiksilver first projected sales of $5 million to $20 million in the first few years for Hawk Clothing, but has since upped its estimates to between $20 million and $50 million over the next three to five years. “The skate industry is alive and well and doing great,” Quiksilver CEO Robert McKnight said. “It’s the fastest-growing extreme youth sport kids start at an early age using skateboards as transportation to and from school and around their neighborhood. It’s an early starter extreme sport for kids.”

The clothing line is tapping into a mostly untapped market for kids who want to wear the same cool clothes as their older brothers and sisters. “The whole skateboard market demographics have shifted from a 17-year-old to a 10-year-old,” Rosenberger explains. “Hawk addresses the younger guy. Retail shops now are carrying more small-size products, whereas they used to be geared toward more older teenagers and young men.” As the skateboard industry grows, retailers such as Huntington Surf & Sport have expanded their stores to carry skateboards. In April, that retailer created a separate store for the sport called HSS in Huntington Beach. Jon McGee, HSS store manager and buyer, said there are many companies targeting the skateboard enthusiast because it’s the “big thing right now.”

Carl Womack, CFO of Anaheim-based Pacific Sunwear, said, “The popularity of skate is on an up trend with our customers. We carry Vans apparel and new up-and-coming skateuys such as Volcom, Split and Independent have grown in last six months to a year.” Unlike those others, however, who have built their brands from scratch. Quiksilver is trying to enter the market by buying and rapidly expanding an existing high-profile brand. Darren Barker, an analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities, said the purchase was a good move by Quiksilver because it has a knack for building brands and it gives the company an authentic skate brand without alienating its core beach consumer. “They now have a core skate brand they can use to grow sales without damaging the core (Quiksilver) brand,” said Barker who estimates that Quiksilver spent about $1 million for the name. Gary Szenderski, senior partner, Szenderski Rohani Worldwide in Irvine, said brand names of actual people can give a brand instant credibility, but it can be a double-edged sword if that person gets into trouble or behaves inappropriately. “It saves a company a lot of time and money to build a relationship with their target audience because consumers will be buying a brand they are comfortable with,” he said. “You get a great rub-off benefit, because the name and the person are the same so it rubs off with the brand.” Two years ago, skateboarding legend Tony Hawk, his brother Steve, editor, of the extreme sports Internet site Swell.com, and their sister, Pat, identified a market for young boys who wanted to wear the same cool clothes that their older brothers were wearing. But their Hawk Clothing didn’t have the financial backing and infrastructure it needed to keep up with demand from retailers. The Hawk family decided to offer the brand to Quiksilver, and even landed a deal to have Tony Hawk become a Quiksilver team rider and spokesman. Hawk also gives Quiksilver direction, and he is given final approval on the apparel and accessories lines. The new Hawk lines include boys and men’s T-shirts for $16.50 to $19, boys’ and men’s woven shirts $30 to $40, boys’ and men’s shorts $36 to $45 and boys’ and men’s pants $39 to $59 as well as accessories such as backpacks, hats, beanies, wallets and belts. Pacific Sunwear launched two TV commercials earlier this year, one with a skateboard theme and the other with a surf theme. Three weeks after getting Hawk into its stores PacSun shops created a window display to promote it. This week, Pacific Sunwear is launching the Hawk 900 Sweepstakes, offering prizes to be won from about 1.5 million game cards being distributed through its 498 PacSun stores nationwide and promoted on its Web site and those of Activision, publisher of a Tony Hawk video game; EBworld.com; Harper Collins, publisher of a Tony Hawk book; and Tony Hawk sponsors Birdhouse Skate Decks and Arnette Sunglasses. The promotion is slated for two weeks of store exposure and six weeks on the Web. Besides expanding the line and adding marketing muscle, Quiksilver is testing a junior’s line and looking at footwear, said Bill Bussiere, a senior vice president who heads up the skateboard and winter sports divisions at the firm.

“It’s something so closely tied to the skateboard industry that certainly it’s a possibility that we would be involved in footwear, but there is nothing on the horizon right now,” Bussiere said. “We are going to test the store in New Jersey and we are looking at other retail locations,” he said. “I would like to see us grow in the Midwest and increase our presence there because it’s a whole untapped market.” n

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