Strongbow is a 40-year-old cider brand that was suffering from serious competition from new brands in an exploding cider market. Strongbow sought to create a PR stunt to increase sales and to mark the start of summer - the key cider season in Australia. The stunt needed to be contemporary, social, lively, optimistic and it needed to capture the attention of the media.We all know that in Australia summer is about the beach. Australians love the beach and they love to surf, so how could we take a whole new angle on surfing to mark the start of summer?The idea: A Strongbow neon-surfing stunt at Bondi beach on summer’s eve with 20 local surfers, to celebrate the start of summer.We created custom-made branded neon-suits and surfboards, went surfing on the eve of summer at Bondi beach, and threw a big media-party overlooking the stunt where we had fireworks, got legendary surf film maker Jack McCoy to film it, focussed on mass-media exposure, got the film online within 24 hours and made it so good it went global within the day.The results were impressive:* 434,000+ YouTube views, with 414 comments and 1,669 favourites;* 32,500,000 readership/viewership and counting;* 2nd-most-viewed YouTube in Australia (December 1-10, 2011);*185 media clips across the globe;* Strongbow sales increased AUS$2.86m (YOY = 10.8% increase).

We custom-made the neon wetsuits and surfboards in our workshop.We negotiated the use of Australia’s most iconic beach Bondi.We used Bondi locals (both girls and boys) to ensure credibility; some of them already had a media profile.We organised a party for key influencers, overlooking Bondi beach in order to watch the stunt.The media outreach to key influencers from the surfing and online media began around three weeks before the event.We created on Twitter #strongbowsummer and a Facebook page to start the conversation early.We placed a story in Sydney’s Metro daily, the day before Summer’s Eve.Through social-media and print coverage, we drew a crowd of hundreds on the beach.Got the surfers in the water, shot the film, edited the footage and seeded the content to 200,000 target consumers and 700 influencers across media, entertainment and lifestyle.

The campaign-activity generated 185 media clips, including media coverage on every major free-to-air news bulletin in Sydney, national coverage online, and major metropolitan newspaper coverage.

This resulted in 32.5m in readership/viewership, international coverage on CNN, Dailymail.co.uk, BBC Worldwide, guardian.co.uk, Fuji TV (Japan), New York Daily News and more, and 434,000+ views on YouTube with 414 comments.It was the 2nd-most-viewed YouTube video in Australia during its first week online.Over summer 2011/12, the number of Strongbow drinkers grew by 131%, 72% faster than the growth of the total cider category.Compared with the same period the previous year, Strongbow experienced a 7.6% increase in volume sales and a 10.3% uplift in value sales (December-January 2010/2011 compared to December-January 2011/2012) Strongbow reported an increase of $1.92 million in value sales.

Strongbow reported an increase of AUS$2.86m in value sales, which equates to an increase of 33,800 cases.