A-frame

Aaberg, Denny

Aaberg, Kemp

Abberton, Koby

Abbruzzi, Sid

Abellira, Reno

Abubo, Megan

academia and surfing

Adler, Tom

advertising and surfing

Aeder, Erik

aerial

Aguerre, Fernando

Aichner, Scott

Aikau, Clyde

Aikau, Eddie

Aipa, Ben

air-drop

airbrush

Airshow

Ala Moana

Alabama

alaia board

Alaska

alcohol and surfing

Alexander, Kala

Allen, Chuck

Alms, Paige

aloha shirt

Alter, Hobie

Alvarez, Pepe

Ancell, Kevin

Andaman Islands

Andersen, Lisa

Anderson, Craig

Anderson, Simon

Andino, Kolohe

Angel, Jose

angle

Angola

Angourie

Antarctica

Apocalypse Now

Arabian Sea

Aragon, Janice

Arakawa, Eric

Archbold, Matt

Arena, Eduardo

Ashton, Juan

Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP)

Atlantic Ocean

August, Robert

Aurness, Rolf

Auster, Ken

Australia

Avalon, Frankie

Azores

backdoor

backside

backside attack, Pipeline

backwash

bail out

Bain, Rob

Baja California

Baker, Bernie

Baker, Grant “Twiggy”

Baker, Tim

Bali

Ball, John “Doc”

Ballard, Bill

Ballard, Rochelle

balsa

Baltic Sea

Banks, Jim

Barbados

Barilotti, Steve

Barland, Michel

Barreda, Sergio “Gordo”

Barry, Michael

Bartholomew, Wayne

Baxter, Jackie

Bay of Bengal

Beach Boys, The

Beacham, Debbie

beachboys

beachbreak

Beachcomber Bills Grand Prix

Beachley, Layne

beavertail

Becker, Phil

Bedford-Brown, Stuart

Belgium

Bells Beach

Bendall, Ma and Pa

Bennett, Barry

Benson, Becky

Benson, Blanche

Benson, Linda

Bermuda

Bertlemann, Larry

Surfing has been used as an advertising tool for over 100 years. The sport's revival in Hawaii during the early 20th century was in fact greatly encouraged by Waikiki hotel owners and other regional boosters who recognized "surf-riding" as a romantic tourist-trade marketing device. Surfing was introduced to Southern California in 1907 when Waikiki surfer George Freeth, arriving on the mainland with a letter of introduction from the Hawaii Promotion Committee, was hired as a beachside attraction at the Redondo Plunge in southwest Los Angeles County and billed as "The Hawaiian Wonder."

Surfing's attractiveness to advertisers was and remains obvious: it's healthy and exciting, sexy but not lewd, and performed in a beautiful and photogenic natural setting. Most surf-themed print ads between the '20s and '50s had to do with travel promotion for companies like Matson Line cruises, or tropical-grown foods and beverages like Dole Pineapple.

As surfing boomed in the late '50s and '60s, slipstreaming in large part behind the consumer-powerful teenage baby boomers, advertisers began putting the sport to use for an expanding range of products and services, including obvious youth market items like Coca-Cola and the inexpensive Buick Opel sedan, as well as more imaginative wares like Cutex's "Hang Ten" nail polish (available in "Shoot the Curl Coral" and "Wipe Out Pink"), Canadian Club Whiskey, Salem cigarettes, and Clairol Sudden Summer hair lightener. Niche advertising also exploded during the '60s, as surf companies booked ad pages in dozens of regional, national, and international surf magazines.

The story of surf-themed advertising over the past four decades has been little more than a constant broadening of product application, and by the '90s surfing was being used to promote toothpaste (Crest), allergy pills (Allegra), camcorders (Sony), cell phone service (AT&T), credit cards (Visa), and department stores (Macy's), along with dozens of car models and alcohol brands. A Cafe´de Colombia ad superimposed fictitious coffee grower Juan Valdez, along with his donkey, atop a surfboard inside a thundering Hawaiian tube.

Baby boomers, now approaching retirement age, returned as a surf-ad target demographic, with companies like Kodak, Aetna, Kellogg's, and Wilmington Trust creating print and TV campaigns using gray-haired surfer/models. In a 2000 print ad for Springmaid Bed and Bath, legendary Hawaiian surfer Albert "Rabbit" Kekai, 80, posed on the beach wrapped in a seafoam-green sheet, a small wave rushing around his feet, with text reading simply, "I dream of the next wave."

A partial list of famous surfers who have done advertising work includes Duke Kahanamoku for Sears and Roebuck, Tom Blake for Matson Line, Mickey Dora for Oldsmobile, Nat Young for White Stag, Joyce Hoffman for Triumph, Corky Carroll and Rob Machado for Miller Lite, Mark Richards for Kentucky Fried Chicken, Wayne Bartholomew for Smirnoff, Cheyne Horan for Sunkist, Laird Hamilton for American Express, Kalani Robb for Arby's, and Carissa Moore for Nike.

A 1986 TV ad for California Coolers, a sugary wine-based drink, featured the old Trashmen hit "Surfin' Bird," used vintage clips of Terry "Tubesteak" Tracy at Malibu, and was a hit with rank-and-file surfers. Most surf-themed ads, however, are met with resignation or irritation, as companies put the sport to use in ways that surfers deem inappropriate or insulting. Occasionally those feelings are stronger. In 1999, longboard-era surfers George Downing, Paul Strauch, and Ben Aipa brought a $5.5 million defamation suit against clothing giant Abercrombie & Fitch after a 1965 photo of them was used in the middle of a four-page A&F ad spread (shot by fashion legend Bruce Weber) featuring nude surfers. Surf journalist Gary Taylor spoke for the sport at large when he described the A&F ad as "a high-profile example of corporate America's attempt to cash in on surfing mystique and getting it wrong yet again."

Surf-theme advertising hit a high point in 1999, with "Surfer," a black-and-white TV spot for Guinness that somehow combines big-wave surfing, charging white stallions, and a pulsing electronic drum track into something warm, funny, soulful, and thrilling. In 2002, “Surfer” was voted the best ad of all time by the British public in a poll by Channel 4 and The Sunday Times.

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