No-one seemed to have a kind word to say about Gabby’s Galaxy (although Surfer did note that at least being in techno touch might stop Charlie’s annoying whistling) but from where I’m sitting, Samsung’s cell-phone surfboard is a master stroke. 

It is perhaps the last rung on the ladder of lunacy that begun more than 50 years ago when Midget Farrelly stepped up, took the ad agency’s filthy lucre and posed in the grey dawn with a Philishave Cordless running over his sporadic and zit-filled teenage whiskers. “Avoca, 5am and no cord”, was the enigmatic shout line.

At a shade under 10 quid, including batteries, the Philishave was an absolute steal, and the advertising agency no doubt imagined that all along the Australian coastline, surfers would soon be climbing out of their stinking panel vans at dawn and shaving off their bristles before venturing out into the perfect empty line-up. Yeah, right. 

The Philips company misread the market entirely, assuming that surfers, like clerks and accountants and advertising creative directors, would want to spruce up before getting down to business. If they had actually gone to a beach somewhere and looked at surfers, they would have realised that there was virtually no subset of humanity that was less likely to purchase a cordless shaver. 

Samsung, which is trying so hard to position itself as the surfer’s go-to tech company, has learnt nothing from Philips’ mistake, making the same basic misread of the target market and assuming that surfers want to be “connected” when they’re surfing. Apparently not. “This is probably the stupidest thing I have ever seen associated with surfing,” some one commenter. “We surf to get away from the world, not to connect with it. We want to be alone, or with each other, not connected to what’s on the shore.”

You can’t blame Gabby. He just needs the money, same as Midget. And he’ll pay for it, don’t you worry. Can you imagine paddling along minding your own business and there’s Charlie Medina on the deck of your board yelling at you via Skype!

But these are not isolated incidents separated by half a century. The big end of town has been trying to twist surfing into its warped marketing plans forever, taking down a few notables along the way. He might be Byron Bay’s tribal elder and social and environmental conscience today, but back in the ‘60s Rusty Miller was seen sliding down the face at Sunset on beer advertising billboards all over America. Well, at least he wasn’t the face of Newport Filters, the cigarette brand that around the same time ran a campaign in which a girl in a frilly bikini wades out into the break to bring her man a ciggie while he surfs, as you do.

In the ‘70s and ‘80s the Bronzed Aussies promotional troupe was quite shameless about associating itself (and surfing) with any product or service that had a budget. In Australia we laughed them out of town so PT and Kanga went to America where Corky Carroll had been doing the same thing for quite a while, albeit with a sense of humour, and made quite a go of it.

And that’s probably the key to the surf exploiters. You can forgive them almost anything if they’re funny, or at least spectacular. The 1999 White Horses commercial for Guinness stout, featuring longboard champ Rusty Keaulana, among others, managed to be both. Shot in Hawaii and directed by Jonathan Glazer, it picked up every award going and in 2002 was voted the “best commercial ever”.

And then, just a couple of years ago, we had our own Baz Luhrmann making us believe that Gisele Bundchen was a hot surfer as well as a hot body, as she allegedly streaked down a Cloudbreak face for Chanel No 5. Beat me, whip me, I loved that ad. It exploited surfing, sure, but it was funny, spectacular and dead sexy.

The same could be said of Quiksilver’s Roxy Pro France teaser that came out about the same time, exploiting surfing, women, and, of course, the delightful Steph Gilmore. I thought it was the best marketing Quik had done in years, and paid it the ultimate compliment by making a parody of it, featuring myself in the Gilmore role. And that went viral too!

So good luck, Samsung. I reckon you’ll sell about as many cell phone surfboards as Philips sold cordless shavers, but everyone is talking about you, so that may be irrelevant. //PHIL JARRATT