VSKILLZ CREATIVE BUSINESS SOLUTIONS BY VITTORIO SOMMELLA
CASE STUDY
Role: Co-founding team: Strategic Partnerships
THE INCEPTION OF THE BWWT
In 2009, after ten years since the last event, Gary Linden and Pierre Camoin decided to bring back an international big wave surfing competition to the island of Todos Santos (Baja California, Mexico).
The key of running lean, with a limited crew, no budget, no prize money and few resources our team of only 3 people generated nearly 50 million web-impressions for a one-day event, eventually capturing the interest of an outstanding number of media worldwide.
The 2009/2010 Todos Santos Big Wave Event, was the proof of concept, the validation of a model that, eventually, became the realization of an idea: the first Big Wave World Tour Championship in surfing history.
BUILDING A GLOBAL COMMUNITY
The first strategic phase started a few months before the Todos Santos Big Wave Event. The creation of a unified big wave championship tour became the vision upon which the entire project was built. Building a strong community around this common purpose was extremely key to facilitate the integration of 3 pre-existing big wave international surfing competitions:
- The Quiksilver Ceremonial at Punta de Lobos (Chile)
- The Billabong Pico Alto Invitacional (Peru)
- The Mavericks Surf Contest;
In addition, to achieve such challenging task, all of those autonomous events needed to fall under the same rulebook, the same event format and a unique scoring system, specifically designed by the athletes, the judges and the big wave surfing pioneers.
The only way to make that happen, was that our team strategically created strong synergies with local communities, surfers, influencers, sponsors, volunteers and the fans spread among the US, Chile, Peru and Mexico. What before were group of surfers that had the same hobby, became the cornerstone of a community of individuals, professionals and passionate people that shared the same key values such as the love for mother nature, the respect for the ocean and the pride of being few selected athletes worldwide.
All of those elements started to work together and resulted in the coronation of the first Big Wave World Tour Champion in history: brazilian Carlos Burle.
“ The event was about as grassroots as a professional event could be but you wouldn't have known it from the high level of judging, organization and efficiency with which the contest was produced ”
Jason Murray, ESPN
STAYING TRUE TO THE FOUNDING VALUES
The second strategic phase was also extremely delicate and exciting. Creating a solid brand identity and positioning the BWWT while ensuring autonomy of the existing events and obtaining validation from the industry and the media.
The creation of key partnerships, the access to astonishing content as well as the extraordinary performances offered by the athletes, captured the attention of worldwide media outlet such as ESPN, Surfline and National Geographic. The BWWT now was under the spotlight.
Even though the tour received the initial interest of several investors, the deals presented never appeared to ensure a solid future to neither the athletes nor the sport, so the BWWT team decided to remain independent and keep building around the community.
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By staying true to its original values, the brand grew organically event after event, eventually becoming a global phenomenon. Our team worked to preserve authenticity, maintain the independence of the events and support those local communities that contributed to creating the culture of big wave surfing in the previous decades.
The results were remarkable and thanks to the ultimate integration of The Mavericks Contest - the most iconic big wave surfing venue - we ensured a partnership with CBS for a live streaming show that registered 736,337 plays and 37 countries connected.
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THE VISION REALIZED!
After the conception of the first official qualifying event in Spain and the announcement of Greg Long as the fourth World champion, the success of the BWWT was celebrated by all media worldwide.
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The entire project culminated in the summer of 2013 (four years after the first event in Mexico), with the final acquisition of the BWWT by the Association of Surfing Professional, today World Surf League (WSL).
