As the only female involved in this group project, I want to enable that I establish the marketing tools that will advertise itself to not only the male population, but also females too. Obviously, our project will be based in Huddersfield, therefore I need to establish ways that advertisements and social media based marketing will influence females as well as males. One aspect I have noticed in particular with the fashion aspects of the skateboarding brands, there is a large population of females that sport the branding, but do not take part in the sport. As part of our business model I would be interested in finding out more, as to why individuals may or may not be interested in getting involved, and if this would change if there were a new way to skate.
Organisations such as Skate Like a Girl: encourage and empower women to express their abilities with skating, and they suggest that skateboarding is a vehicle to build an individuals confidence, but also ‘foster community’, an important aspect of our manifesto when curating our store throughout the Empty Shop Project. Having aspects such as skating lessons for 12 year olds and under, is an interesting contribution to building communities throughout, particularly as this is teaching younger individuals, but also bringing them together to do something that they enjoy. To say that only women join this organisation would be unfair, however it allows people of all genders, ethnicities and ages to join something that is valued something social, and fun.
These community values and ways of working are detrimental to look towards, when creating our own experience based store, as we want individuals to believe is doesn’t matter their abilities or any other contributions that stop a person from doing something they want.
Tyler Bishop-Harris 