BMX Basics

Let's start this month with a little exercise. I want you to sit back in your chair and, just talking to yourself, describe yourself and your life... without using a single brand name. Can you do it? It sounds simple enough, but most people have problems doing so, particularly "grownups" who don't have consuming hobbies like BMX to occupy their time and money. Tell yourself about... yourself. Leave out the bike or car you have, or the sports teams you follow, (oh yes, those are brand names too - if you don't believe me, try making your own shirts with "Chicago Bulls" printed on them and see what happens) or the subdivision you live in.

Was that easy? Didn't you find it frustrating to some degree? My experience that people will choose one of two paths when doing their description. If they start off with, say,

My name is Joe Jones. I live in McLean, Virginia. I have a Audi A6 2.7T, a Powerlite Coqpit, and a Suzuki GSX-R 750. I'm a graduate of Penn State. I like watching Yankees games.

My name is Joe Jones. I like cars, BMX, and baseball...

My name is Joe Jones. I live in a prestigious suburb on the East Coast. I own top-of-the-line luxury cars, bicycles, and motorcycles. I went to a good state university. I'm a fan of some New York-area teams.

Which is more honest, if either? The first "boil-down", because it strips out what some people would call "bs" in favor of a simple explanation, or the second, because it's what that person really wants you to know about him? I don't have a simple answer for that. You will have to decide.

Notice, however, that my sample response didn't include phrases like "I'm an American", or "I'm (Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, etc)", or "I'm an honest person". Those may sound like obvious things to mention, but a hundred years ago people would be very quick to mention them. They would also be quick to talk about their families, their businesses, and a lot of other things that people aren't so eager to discuss any more. What's changed between then and now?

In a word - branding. Branding is probably the most important "paradigm shift" to occur in the past fifty years. (For those of you who have not heard that term, a "paradigm shift" is just a dorky way of saying, "The way we look at, or think about, something has fundamentally changed. An example of a paradigm shift would be car loans. Once upon a time, you paid cash for a car, period. Taking out a loan to pay for a car was considered very risky. Nowadays, very few people feel that way.) Study after study has shown that most people today feel more strongly about their brands than they do about their religious beliefs, their political beliefs, or nearly anything else.

Don't believe me? Try the following experiment. Ask a friend of yours to convince you that Clinton was a better president than Bush is, or vice versa. Then ask him to convince you that Christianity is better than Buddhism, or vice versa. Then ask him to convince you that his bike (or car, or power drill) is better than yours. On which topic will your friend be the most animated, the most convincing? My guess is that the third of our potential topics will be the most interesting to him, and that he will be most convincing on that topic.

How much is a brand worth? Ask the folks at Toyota - they spent hundreds of millions of dollars to create the Lexus brand. Ask companies like Procter & Gamble, which spend more on "brand development" than they do on product development. Ask anybody who just paid $39 for a "Tommy" t-shirt. To many people, branding is everything, whether they are conscious of that fact or not.

How did this happen? Well, over the past forty years or so people have felt progressively more isolated. Post-September 11 hysteria aside, very few people in America are really "proud to be an American". Very few people are proud of their religion, because the media tells us that all religions are of equal value and that it is wrong to try to promote your religion. In an era where most jobs are pretty much alike, and you can lose your job at any moment, it's tough to be proud of your job. And yet, people need to feel pride about, and identification with, something, which is where branding comes in.

When you choose a brand, you are choosing brand cues. Corporations work very hard to make sure you fully understand their brand cues and shop accordingly. Can you match the following brands with their cues?

Was that difficult? When you made your choices, did you consider that many BMWs are made in the US, that a lot of Standard Byke owners are, technically speaking, "yuppies", that Apples are pretty dependable, that a lot of Toyotas are high-tech? Probably not, because the brand images of Standard, BMW, Apple, Toyota, and Wal-Mart are so strongly defined. They also transcend reality to some degree - the majority of BMW owners are in their forties and fifties, the majority of Standards out there are ridden by kids who can't clear a set of six-foot doubles, and for many years there was very little "high-tech" about Apple's line of products.

Speaking of Standard - what a brand! Some of my readers get a little tired of me using Standard as a whipping boy in so many of my columns, but it's hard to resist. What is Standard Bykes? "A bike manufacturer," you reply. Not true. Standard is a brand, plain and simple. Standards are built by a former division of Schwinn. How many of the Standard fanatics out there would be quite so fanatical if they knew that? How many of them would pay $390 for a BMX bike welded, not by Rick Moliterno and a band of hardcore dudes in a mosh pit somewhere, but by the same welders who made Paramount road bikes and tandems? Could you call these people up and have them make you a bike? Possibly - I discussed it with them back in 1992. Would it be a Standard? Well, it would be made by the same people, but it wouldn't be a Standard. How would it be different from a Standard? Well, it wouldn't have the stickers on it. So what makes a Standard? Well... a set of stickers makes a "Waterford" bike a "Standard".

What about Haro? Is Haro a manufacturer or a brand? Their bikes are made in Taiwan by the same people who make other peoples' bikes. Maybe the design is the difference - except most modern BMX bikes are designed pretty much like other BMX bikes. Seventy-four-degree head, 20"/20.5"/21" top tubes, and so on. Maybe Haro is a sticker company - but do they make their own stickers?

The BMX "clothing companies" - how many of them are just people like you and me, paying someone to screen-print designs on T-shirts made by yet another company? How many "parts companies" are just putting their own name on items designed and made by large Chinese and Taiwanese companies? Fifteen years ago, there was a Taiwanese company named "Anlun" that made stems. The Anlun stems that said "Haro" on them sold for $25; the "Redline" ones were worth $20, and the "Anlun" ones were worth $12... Today, Anlun makes pedals. Notice how the DK, S&M, and Cyclepro "DX" pedals all look exactly alike? Hmm...

If there's no difference between BMX brands, why do people have brand loyalty? Well, not all brands are the same. Many companies have their own welders, their own production facilities, and their own design philosophies. And it's even possible for two American "manufacturers" who deal with the same Taiwanese company to get different levels of quality, just because one company is willing to pay more and/or quality-check more thoroughly. The problem for the average rider is finding out which "brand" is worthwhile and which is horse-puckey, so to speak.

You also can't discount the fact that, even if all BMX bikes were identical, some kids would pay more for a particular brand just so people would know they had paid more. What's the idea behind wearing a "Polo" T-shirt, when a plain one will do? Why buy a Haro when a MOSH is identical? Why buy a Standard when a Supercross is just as good? Well, you do it to show off. It's a known fact that for every nutcase like me who actually runs his BMW up to triple-digit speeds in foul weather, there are twenty people who never spin the back wheels in theirs. For every hardcore ramp rider who wants to feel totally confident in his frame when he's twelve feet over the coping, there are fifty kids who want to be just like that hardcore ramp rider, even if they've never ridden a ramp. For every rapper who can afford a $300 hat without thinking about it, there are ten thousand kids who will beg, work, borrow or steal to get that same hat. If people bought stuff based on what they needed, we'd all be driving Saturns, wearing 50/50 blends, and riding $300 bikes. Do you want to live in a world like that? Nah, me neither.

What's the point? We have two points this month. #1: Branding is important, inside our sport and outside. Learn more about it. #2: Not everything in BMX is what it looks like. #3: I know, I said there were only two, but there's one that's too important to leave out - you are more than what you own or wear. #4: (yeah, I know) Even considering #3, don't wear 50/50 blends. #5: See you next month.