The Vans RAD Ad - Plus

Last month I got a call from Jon Taylor who said that he wanted to shoot an advert for Vans in old school race gear. He sent me through the advert from decades ago and said he would like to copy it as much as possible. It sounded like a fun day out of the office.

Being beautiful blue skies in the previous ad and a flyout, we decided that Romford Skatepark would be the ideal choice, so on a Tuesday morning off we went. We didn't know that it was closed that day though, but I'll let Jon fill you in more about what happened...

What's the Vans RAD shoe all about?
It's a shoe that they did years ago to coincide with the movie...

What possessed you to don some old school race gear and break into Romford Skatepark?
Right, the plan was to redo the Rad ad which they did years ago to coincide with the movie and the shoe. I wanted to do it as close to the old one as possible. When we got to Romford Skatepark it was closed, so I called Andy Peerless and he said if it was for the advert we could jump the fence! So we did!

How did you acquire all those products? Aren't those wheels worth alot of money?
Alans BMX - he gave me all the stuff... Yep, and the wheels are Mongoose Motomags... I'm not sure the full price but it's about £500...

You've been on Vans for ten years, what's your best experience over that time?
There has been so much stuff. Having cool shoes to wear all the time is so good!

So here are a few photos of what went down and the final advert at the end of it...


Jumping the fence...


We thought we'd try a shot over the hip first so this is just a focus shot...


Product shot of the shoe... Nice pedals.


Stylin it up... This is the final shot, thankfully the sun was out.

Check out the advert in the new issue of the magazine if this hasn't satisfied your curiosity...

Catch the Latest Ride BMX Videos on Mpora.com





Send this article to a friend