Burton Realigns Brand – Dropping Forum, FourSquare and Special Blend

Burton announced a major brand restructuring today. Burton intends to divest non-core and non-profitable business components so that they can refine their focus, research and development on snowboarding and snowboarding only. Says Jake, ”When you walk through the front door here in Burlington, Vermont, it will be all snowboarding and snowboarding lifestyle all the time – driven by the Burton, Analog and anon brands.”

I have to ask if this realignment to core values includes Pottery Barn co-branded bedspreads and duvets?

Here’s the Reader’s Digest version of the brand shakeup:

• Analog loses the “lifestyle” bit and returns to being a “pure snowboarding brand”. Analog will return to the Burlington VT headquarters.
• Gravis moves to Tokyo, Japan and will distribute lifestyle shoes and bages in Asian markets only.
• RED will be gradually discontinued as Burton develops protective headwear and optics under the anon brand.
• Foursquare, Forum and Special Blend will be transitioned out. These brands will continue to be serviced/warrantied by Burton for the next year and fully transitioned out for the 2014 winter.
• Channel Islands will be unaffected.

The major bummer here is that it looks like Forum, FourSquare, and Special Blend are going bye-bye, as they’ve been unprofitable for Burton over the past 8 years.