Making Waves…

How to promote the UK’s biggest and best inland surf lake when it was still being built.

In 2018 I was very excited to be part of a pitch winning team, at Anything is Possible, that won the advertising business for The Wave, Bristol. Through the back end of 2018 we worked hard, planning the media and creative strategy, in preparation for launching in the early summer of 2019. But it was a big engineering project and things sometimes take longer than planned. We had some great concepts planned, but no surf lake to film them in. But we needed to make a noise for the projected open date in September. A conundrum.

I took a decision that we would have to create something, or have no campaign when we eventually opened in September. Taking a cold hard look at the world of destination marketing and surf advertising I realised that we had to do something that truly grabbed eyeballs and dramatised ‘inland surfing’. It also had to look like everyone of all ages and abilities could enjoy The Wave. Not just hard core surfers. And, besides, images of gnarly surfers in tube waves could just be taken for surf brand ads, or travel advertising for the West Country. We had a lot to get into this creative, and it had to work hard to gain awareness.