Photo: Yoshi Josef Toomuch
In the latter half of the 1990s, it was the emergence of domestic brands that stopped Japanese snowboarders who had been nailed to overseas top stars.Among them, in 1997, 12 hardcore members gathered, and TWELVE SNOWBOARDS walked with a pro shop that understands snowboarding purely, targeting all the play in the snowy mountains, from free riding to freestyle extreme. is. TWELVE is celebrating its 20th anniversary this season.Over the years, the Japanese snowboarding scene and the brand itself have undergone various changes.And now, seven riders consisting of specialists from all over the country and in each field inherit the Real Snowboarders Spirits from the brand's inception and reconstruct and disseminate a new brand concept in the current scene. ing.
Brand change
Since the brand's inauguration, TWELVE has gathered unique riders who have found their lives in slippery, and has continued to produce and transmit snowboards that they continue to pursue, rather than so-called user-friendly business-based manufacturing.That's a big reason why this brand has been around for 20 years.And that commitment has continued to influence various scenes as a mixed culture that involves all scenes such as street music art, not just snowy mountains.If the members who continue to convey the supreme play and fun of snowboarding take action, the number of people who support it will increase, creating a movement and establishing an immovable position.
Eleven years have passed since its inception, and the model "TJ", which was one series of TWELVE, was spun off in 11 and became independent as TJ Brand.I felt the limit in the part of manufacturing in the factory that mass-produces skis so far, and many original shapes were born as a new stage that transcended it.It was also connected to a factory that could actually make it into a shape.Members who are more interested in the possibility of being born from shape than the expression of slipping gradually shifted from TWELVE to TJ, and the early TWELVE fans and users who were fascinated by it and the current freeride boom overlapped naturally. It became a flow to choose TJ.
Rebuilding the new TWELVE brand
With the spread of the Internet, information and videos transmitted from SNS are now becoming the source of information that users pay attention to.Anyone can be the source of information, not just the media, brands, and riders, and in the cycle of huge updates, it becomes difficult to clearly convey brand information, even unreliable information. It has become an era that attracts a lot of attention.
In such an era, the current TWELVE riders have inherited the spirit of the brand's original spirit and tried and errored the brand's new concept in a way that was close to the present era.While individually working in their own home mountain and disseminating information, I also felt that it was difficult for the riders' information to reach the users.Feeling the limit to the minimum transmission of individual power, they continued to exchange opinions with each other many times and came up with one answer.It was also the moment when I arrived at "the importance of on-site communication with users" and returned to the basics.By sharing the same space, we can know more about the user's thoughts.By knowing what the users are looking for, we should be able to get a big hint as to what kind of movement our riders should do.All the riders gathered for a TWELVE team session last season to reaffirm what they should be aiming for.
TWELVE Team Session in Hakuba
The place is Hakuba.A session that emphasizes team communication in a peaceful atmosphere rather than skiing in huge sections or hard backcountry.Riders from all over the world gathered in the mountains and shared time together through snowboarding, spending valuable days where they could feel each other's growth and slippage.Yes, it was also a restructuring of the team and sense of unity that our predecessors had taken for granted.And the other purpose of this time is "communication with users in the snowy mountains".On the last day of the stay, we will hold a riding session to share the space with the users and hold an after party.There are about 30 participants.Because of this number of people, we were able to share a lot of time individually, and all the riders were able to feel the response as an opportunity to firmly convey the TWELVE brand to the connected users.
FUTURE
No matter how much information is flooded on the Internet, the importance of believing in what you actually see and feeling the wonder of meeting face-to-face remains the same.Currently, there are many riders specializing in genres in the Japanese snowboarding scene, but TWELVE emphasizes that each rider can slide "all round" and conveys the fun and playing style of snowboarding in various genres as a brand. I was able to recognize that again.And from now on, each rider will gain experience and ability as a slipper, and will leave photos and videos that attract more people.With that in mind, we found a new sense of value for our riders to increase the opportunities for communication with users in the field of snowy mountains.
At the 20th anniversary of TWELVE, the generations living in the present have found a new brand concept and are starting again.
TWELVE Team Session in Hakuba MOVIE
TWELVE TEAM RIDER
Nakao “Masai” Masaaki, Hideyuki Kaji, Takumi Yamamoto, Hikaru Kitajima, Tsukasa Monoi, Yasuhiro Shinkai, Emi Hatakeyama
