Mercedes-Benz Portugal had been sponsoring big wave surfer and world record holder Garrett McNamara for over a year, but gaining little visibility regardless of the huge awareness Garrett had locally and globally. With an open brief, a small production budget and media investment we needed to find a way of driving awareness without relying on a traditional campaign.
With the help of Mercedes-Benz AMG team, we reengineered Garrett's very unique surfboard that could handle the massive waves of Nazaré's north beach, home to some of the biggest waves in the world.
But starting the campaign with the film that documented the project would not get us the traction we needed as we were not relying on media investment. So we hacked TV journalists to give us free coverage.
We leaked some images of the boards being shaped to specialty press to get start some buzz about what Mercedes-Benz was developing for Garrett. On the following weeks we drove to Nazaré, as Garrett's surf sessions were a huge attraction at the time gathering hundreds of spectators. And on the week that there were media trucks from all local TVs and global news agencies such as Reuters, we asked for Garret to do something unusual. Instead of going back to the harbour on a jetski, he would come out through the beach. Immediately, journalists flocked to interview him. And they were surprised by his silver surfboard that had the Mercedes star. That was the conversation that opened news shows all around the world that night.
The budget for this project was 30.000€ and the media return was 3.000.000€ (source: Wavemaker Portugal, MEC Portugal at the time of project). This is the main fact that it won the Grand Prix in Portugal's Effies in 2014. It also won the Grand Prix (and contributed towards agency of the year) at Portugal's CCP awards, the highest regarded local creativity awards of advertising.
This was the first project ever to win both a Grand Prix in Portugal's D&AD and a Grand Prix at Portugal's Effie awards.
