During 2019, the Ford EcoSport sponsored professional surfing athlete Italo Ferreira – who became that year's World Champion – and the World Surf League TV broadcast in Brazil, so we were asked to strengthen the link between the SUV and the sport, while activating these two sponsorships.

First, we partnered with Veloe, one of the most innovative mobility companies in Brazil, to create a smart tag that opens toll gates without charging any fees whenever there's great conditions for surfing. For that, we partnered with Waves, the country's main wave prediction platform, to let people know two days in advance that they could go surfing for free. The smart tag was sent as a direct mail to every Ford EcoSport owner in our database living in São Paulo and we activated Italo Ferreira's sponsorship with a content video of him going on a roundtrip from to the beach. We offered EcoSport owners who love escaping from the big city before working hours a new service, using their phones to let them know that the conditions were good for surfing and that they didn't pay for toll fees.

We gathered names and addresses of every owner of the Ford EcoSport living in São Paulo from ours and Ford dealerships' databases and sent them the smart tag. Then we shot a video with Italo Ferreira launching the service and took over Waves.com.br with our visual identity, targeting people who love adventure sports. The video was turned into content for our social media, where we broadened our target using Italo Ferreira's great form in the 2019 WSL to attract viewers to our campaign.

The campaign kicked off in the middle of the Winter, when Brazil sees bigger waves and early morning surfing trips from São Paulo to the beach become more frequent, and it extended until the beginning of the Summer, when the beaches become more crowded. First, every single owner of the Ford EcoSport listed on our database got the smart tag and were contacted by Veloe to finish activating the service. Once finished, they installed the tag on their cars and got notified on their phones every time there were great conditions for surfing and every time they didn't pay toll fees. Then a video with Italo Ferreira officially launched it. In the end, posts on social media and taking over waves.com.br helped spread the campaign.

With over 7 million people reached on social media, during the campaign we saw a 45% increase in searches for "EcoSport". By taking over waves.com.br and with PR on both general and specialised media, we had $9.3 million in earned media. Finally, the service was so seamless that 87% of those who got the smart tag kept using Veloe's services after the campaign ended.