Innocean Australia uses performance data to activate Hyundai and Surfing Australia partnership
Hyundai’s partnership with Surfing Australia has been activated in a new campaign recognising and amplifying female grassroots athletes on a national scale, created by Innocean Australia.
Encapsulated by the new platform ‘She’s Electric’, the campaign sees the launch of the first grassroots women’s surfing leaderboard, leveraging ‘LiveHeats’ performance data from Australian Boardriders Battles across the country.
Giving women a profile based only on performance, the national ranking is designed to unearth breakout talent across eight state rounds, with the top five invited to join Hyundai’s ‘Team Electric’ sponsorship team. The sponsorship includes intensive training at the Hyundai Surfing Australia High Performance Centre (HPC) and $5,000 cash to support the team on their surfing journey.
In addition to the ranking is a partnership with MurMur Mag, a new online female surf publication created by pro surfers Tru and Jesse Starling, to produce the official She’s Electric Pre and Post Show’ content series. Films on the site analyse the data and movements on the leaderboard and include interviews with some of the industry’s greats.
As the leaderboard updates, the live data informs all media and partnership touchpoints, promoting whoever is moving up the national ranks, including leaderboard round ups, top rider profiles, and the “Electric Moves” top five wrap-ups.
For launch, Innocean worked with pro surfer and Hyundai ambassador Laura Enever to create a surfboard with her words of advice. The “Shaped by Defiance” board will travel to each state round, passed on to inspire the next generation.
Laura Enever’s “Shaped by Defiance” board
The campaign hopes to make a difference in a sport that has only granted equal pay to male and females surfers in WSL competitions for the last three years. While surfing has come a long way, the partnership addresses inequality in terms of participation, sponsorship and opportunity, given that one in three surfers are women, yet represent just 10% of grassroots competitors.
Innocean copywriter, Charlotte Berry, said: “Previously there was no national ranking to connect women boardriders around the country, all young female surfers were just anonymous numbers in singular events. The ‘She’s Electric’ platform drives real competition and reframes female surfing on the undeniable numbers, not vanity metrics. These numbers then affect the media, increasing the profile of the surfer consistently performing well to get her name – rather than her number – out there.”
Jennifer Gulliver, director of marketing at Hyundai, said: “Whether you’re from Trigg Beach or Torquay, Coffs Harbour or Kiama, for the first time we are levelling the playing field and growing competition wherever women surf – then at the end of the season, it starts all over again.
“Our new brand platform ‘Have you tried it?’, brings innovative thinking to tackle problems and defy barriers that have previously been accepted as the norm. As part of this, we’re using data to unearth female surfing talent around the country in real time, then providing them with a pathway to the top. This transformative approach creates a fairer playing field and helps tackle the underrepresentation of grassroots female surfers.”
Surfing Australia head of partnerships, Clarissa Pike, added: “On beaches and Boardriders clubs all around Australia there are women discovering or rekindling their love of surfing, yet many of these faces are yet to be discovered. Hyundai wants to change this. Leveraging their marquee sponsorship of the biggest grassroots surfing event in Australia, the Hyundai Australian Boardriders Battle, the ‘She’s Electric Leaderboard’ taps into our goal to support and supercharge the trend we’ve seen all over the country of women surfing and will uncover the talented women that will inspire the next generation of girls to surf.”
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