Northwave North America, based in Seattle, Washington has launched a new snowboard brand, Venue Snowboard Co. for the 2005-06 season. The company, which has been selling boots, bindings and accessories under the Northwave, Drake, and Bakota brands, launched this new addition in order to complete their line-up of hardgoods.
BOSS spoke with Brent Turner, CEO of Northwave N.A., who said that overall the industry and Northwaves retailers have responded positively to the new brand. “Weve heard everything from, thats just what we need, another board brand, to, Its about time! but a vast majority of the retailers are very supportive of the launch.”
Turner said that prior to launching Venue, Northwave took all possibilities into consideration, including acquiring an established brand and rolling the resources into Northwaves structure. The company decided against this because they wanted to start with a clean slate. “We wanted to be able to use the same positioning and distribution channels as our three existing brands, and starting from scratch really is much easier,” he said.
Northwave N.A. is bringing on Andy Aiken as the new snowboard product manager for the Venue brand. The brand will be showing at SIA this year in Northwaves existing booth. While the official launch is mainly a North American affair, the brand will also be distributed internationally through Northwaves Italian parent company and its subsidiaries.
