Costa Sunglasses were invented with a singular purpose: to help anglers stay on the water longer. But anglers were made for more than just fishing, and as they expanded their list of pursuits, the Costa brand set out to do the same. With the launch of the For Those Who Need Water to Breathe campaign, Costa became a water-wide brand. The integrated effort made Costa synonymous with water, and reached the men and women who wring every last drop out of their day.

We knew our target were heavy commuters. We also knew they’d do almost anything to add water to their day. To combine these two insights into one disruptive execution, we didn’t just turn to Waze, we turned Waze on its head. Instead of sponsoring retail locations, we sponsored water, offering up spontaneous detours to nearby lakes, rivers and watering holes.

While you’re using Waze, it’s common to receive suggestions along your route — gas stations, convenience stores and restaurants. But our target — the men and women who swim and surf and fish and need water to breathe — they refuel and recharge a little differently. So instead of sponsoring retail locations, we sponsored water.

Waze notifications popped up during commutes and offered up spontaneous detours to lakes, rivers and watering holes. By linking to watery gems and hidden pools, we enticed water-lovers to abandon the beaten path and landlocked workdays. And they drank it up.

Costa's target audience thrives on the water, just like the product. We knew we weren't going to form a memorable connection in the digital space alone, with a group who isn't inspired by looking at a screen. But we didn't have the budget to buy out OOH in every popular marina in the country. We learned our target spent a significant amount of time commuting and decided to enter a mundane, routine experience and create an inside joke or sorts with our audience. While navigating to work, school, etc on Waze, we placed Costa branded messaging over popular bodies of water and in-app to suggest the user take a detour from their daily duties. Our primary KPI was to introduce the brand in a way that would resonate well after the engagement and align our brand with their passion to earn a last impression, beyond the click.

Taking Waze to new places took collaboration, research and an innovative approach to the medium. Our creative and media departments worked together to turn a straightforward awareness buy into a brand new way to use Waze. The first step was to get the navigation app’s sales team on board — no easy feat considering the unorthodox plan. After they agreed to the premise — promoting watery locations as if they were retail stops — we found watery gems in five markets. To compile the list, which had 402 locations across five cities, we turned to local knowledge, guides and online research, ensuring the destinations would be rewarding for drivers who took the plunge.

Once we had the list, we worked quickly with the Waze team to implement the campaign. Over the course of 2 months, we had a total of 11.2M impressions and offered up over 400 detours per day.

Using the mass scale and commuter audience of Waze, we reached over 11M people through surprise and delight using the following units: through branded pin units, promoted search units and takeover units. While we used the platform in an unconventional way, all units exceeded Waze benchmarks proving a high resonance with the audience. The highest performing placements stemmed from the search units where we intercepted people and pushed them to go to a fresh or saltwater location. We saw a navigation rate over 80% on these units where Waze typically sees an average of 16.67%.

The overall goal of the campaign was to raise brand awareness for Costa and this element helped to surprise and delight users and create a lasting impression.