Riding giants to Branded Entertainment success

In my world a pipeline is something wars are fought over, a smooth ride is what you get in a Lexus, and a break means getting to the news first. Despite a few bruising early-teen years spent on, and mainly off, a skateboard, I am embarrassingly ignorant of board culture. So don't think I'm coming over all "respect the ocean, dude" when I tell you to go see Riding Giants, the newly released documentary about big-wave surfing.

The film opened the 2004 Sundance Film Festival. It was directed by Stacey Peralta, who shot to fame with 2001 Sundance winner Dogtown and Z-Boys, a documentary about a gang of California kids in the '70s who transformed skateboarding -- and youth culture. Riding Giants traces the evolution of big-wave surfing through the stories of three of the sport's they-must-be-insane pioneers, and in doing so explores the surfer ethos.

But what makes the film significant for marketers, even those who don't know one end of a board from another, is that it was partially funded by Quiksilver. The apparel giant has stumbled on a branding model that is based on offering the consumer entertainment rather than interruption. In other words, this is a billion dollar-plus marketer that can look at DVR growth - 36% of households by 2007, according to Forrester; 42.5%, according to Jupiter Media - and honestly say it is ready for this level of consumer control.

Riding Giants is the highest profile in a long line of Quiksilver-funded offerings. Films from the company's coffers over have included Josh Williams' Circle One, as well as Performers, Kelly Slater in Black and White and Mad Wax. Quiksilver has been involved with so many films that in June 2002 it created a unit dedicated to producing content, Quiksilver Entertainment.

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