“But I’ve been rapping here too long.Rickie Fowler with his parents Lynn and Rod and girlfriend Allison Stokke at the Presidents Cup. “I was gonna go windsurfing this afternoon,” he said. “If I can do international business out of my home, I’m more than happy,” Hooker said as an ocean breeze twitched the sheets covering his windows. In his whitewashed Long Beach apartment, Kevin Hooker answered the phone with a crisp: “Zoyds!” He talked of one nightclub’s invitation to make a Zoyd mural-and of keeping his priorities.
“No one had expected him to do much more than get by with a happy life,” said Dwight Hooker. The elder Hooker observes that his son veers toward “joyous products,” attributing his son’s enjoyment ethic to an early loss: Kevin’s mother died at the age of 24. Eventually, he turned pro, circling the country in a van, supporting himself selling recreational products. “He had some kind of battery fluid he was convinced would revolutionize wet-cell batteries,” recalled his father, Dwight Hooker.Ī windsurfing enthusiast during his teens, Kevin qualified for the 1984 summer Olympic trials.
#Rickie tickie tembo series
The son of a former Playboy photographer, Hooker grew up in Detroit, Chicago and Salt Lake City-concocting a series of inventions along the way. “I wouldn’t do it with money that I wasn’t prepared to lose-let’s put it that way,” said Chandler, adding: “Kevin sees opportunities in places I would never see them.” By Christmas, it could be a heavy-duty stocking stuffer.”ĭick Chandler of Rolling Hills heads a medical-products company and owns a percentage of Zoyds Unlimited. “Now I’m trying to find out what’s the faddiest market. “I basically threw some in a bag and started selling them.” I went through about 70 Z names.” His trendy friends rated Zoyds highest. In naming his would-be fad, Hooker thought he would play off Zinka’s success. Now Hooker buys most of his raw materials from Astrodeck. This could be a serious build-your-own accessory.” “I started sticking stuff to the strips-and said “Woooooo. He says every time he looked at those colorful rubber strips, he saw a man’s necktie. “Kevin used to like to go to bars and paint people up (with Zinka),” recalled Zinka’s Mike Rodgers, 27.ĭuring that phase, Hooker was also promoting a no-skid surfboard covering called Astrodeck. Last year, he was promotions director for Long Beach-based Zinka sunscreen. It’s a consumer niche also addressed by the last fad he rode: colored zinc-oxide. Kracke tells Hooker and other novice fad makers that their chances of scoring are 100 to 1.Īnd Hooker, with that I’m-the-one expression, says Zoyds will fill a slew of ‘80s needs, from color to “stress relief,” from “spreading happiness” to “removable fun.” “If you get too analytical,” Kracke added, “you’d never start any of these things.” On the other hand, people’s need to put sticky things on other things hasn’t gone away.
They have no redeeming social characteristics. “Zoyds are just dumb enough to make it,” said Kracke. Kracke invented Rickie Tickie Stickie decals, which sold in the millions during 1968. He’s also sought the counsel of Rolling Hills entrepreneur Don Kracke, who had a get-rich-quick scheme of his own 20 years ago. Since then, he’s placed thousands of packs of Zoyds, about $2 each, at a smattering of area shops. Second, he moved to Long Beach, because “people like things exported from California.” It’s “guerilla marketing”-as one advertising executive puts it-but this windblown athlete has a plan.įirst, he test-marketed Zoyds in Utah ski resorts last winter. You basically go around sticking Zoyds on people. “I came with a few friends and tons of Zoyds. He went to a battle of the bands in Ventura. One recent Sunday was typical, he explained.
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