Want a firsthand look at how tough Hala Gear SUPs are? Now you can say they’re cowboy tough. Witness their unique marketing campaign, Hala vs. Cowboys, pitting a Hala Straight-Up against every torture a band of cowboys could think of.
“My brother and I first came up with the idea of “Hala – Ranch Edition” paddling the Yampa River town run this spring,” says Hala’s Colleen King. “I ran the thought past Hala founder Peter and he agreed.”
So, King brought a Hala SUP over to her cowpoke friends Chase, Garryn and Krit, who rounded up ways they could abuse the boards ranch-style. Krit first saddled-up his white stallion Shaq and towed King down an irrigation path on the ranch. Then he had Shaq drag someone around the dirt arena on the board. Next, he had Shaq stomp on the board. And the board survived it all. It had been run over, dragged behind horses, walked on by animals, and run ragged around the ranch and its bright blue rails held their shape. Some seams were tattered and torn, but the double welding held strong and the Straight-Up still held air. “We abused it pretty good,” says King. “I can’t believe it didn’t break.”
Then Chase came up with the tractor idea. Positioning the board on a stack of round hay bales, he then positioned the tractor in front of the bales with the four long spikes pointing straight at its target. Then he put the tractor in gear and plunged the four spikes into it. As expected, that did the trick, a valiant ending to a magnificent board. But most likely, your board will never experience the sharp points of four tractor spikes.
And at the end of the day, the Straight Up did what Hala boards do best: it brought together a hodgepodge of people to have a good time, with the board taking a bigger beating than anyone could have ever expected. Then, the marketing team took over and combined all th e discombobulated pieces into a cohesive campaign showing how tough the boards are.
“It was one of the most fun things I’ve ever done at Hala,” says King, “besides paddling them, of course. But it shows that the boards aren’t just tough, they’re Ranch Tough.”
Read full story here: Hala vs. Cowboys
Watch Blooper Reel Here!