Sounds like good business, right? It is! Listen to this:
 
"Partnering with The Collection gives the Snickers brand a unique an authentic vehicle to connect with a younger audience and become more relevant in their everyday active and individual lifestyles," said Janis Smith-Gomez, Vice President, Marketing, Masterfoods USA. "The Collection and snowboarding represents a drive and spirit that is consistent with what the Snickers brand is trying to achieve as the fuel to 'keep you going' and playing." (expn.go.com)

More mergers and acquisitions. It seems to echo Burton's decision to add Forum, Jeenyus, Special Blend and Foursquare to their existing portfolio of brands which includes Burton, Analog, Anon, RED and Gravis. In either case, it's a cunning strategy: create and leverage "a unique and authentic vehicle to connect with a younger audience and become more relevant in their… lifestyles." Sort of a marketing Manifest Destiny.

Airborne above the mondo half pipe. (Photo by George Davis)

Even my fellow members of the banner crew seemed to sense the shift, repeatedly commenting on the evolution of their role over the years. "It's gotten so easy now!" I heard it again and again as they waxed almost nostalgic about the chaotic past and acknowledged a subtle feeling of guilt now that things had become so easy and organized.

So what of it? It's normal for things once amateur to evolve and become more professional. Certainly efficiency and streamlining are not typically considered Doomsday indicators, right? Well, I can't help but wonder about the future of snowboarding's grassroots funkiness wherein lies much of its uniqueness and much of its appeal.

This rider-driven world of snowboarding stepped so cleanly and intentionally away from the tried and true model of the ski industry back in the early 80's, and redefined what mountain snow sports were all about. It still permeates the industry today: the funky grunge apparel worn by snowboarders; the gargantuan emphasis on attitude and anti-style; the loud, driving, rebellious, sometimes angry music; the snowboarding media's (magazines, movies, etc.) flirtation with danger, the out-of-bounds, the unknown, the unexplored; the extraordinary importance placed on letting loose, partying and so on. At least on the surface snowboarding flaunts its marginal culture.

And yet snowboarding is an industry that's coming of age, an industry that's quickly shifting from the marginal to the mainstream. With vast financial and organizational resources now propelling the snowboarding industry, it's all but inevitable that the funkiness and the un-corporate, rider-driven world of yesteryear will have to evolve. This evolution toward widespread standardization, clear and transparent commercialism and hierarchic, sometimes clumsy corporate structuring will change the snowboarding culture forever.

Finding itself in this conflicted adolescence complete with self-conscious growing pains, the snowboarding industry is exercising its marketing muscle more effectively than ever to conjure up the renegade lifestyle so appealing to young consumers, while simultaneously adapting to the conventions of "big business". Put another way, the snowboarding industry's modus operandi is to leverage the much hyped un-corporate image of snowboarding to fuel the thriving corporate juggernaut that it is becoming.

Goodbye carefree, and over exuberant youth. Hello thriving, but considerably more button-down and hemmed in adulthood.