It appears that the Triple Crown of Surfing, more directly, the Pipeline Masters, has been the most viewed online contest to date, an approx. 27% growth on previous highs, according to ratings calculated via online data analysis using Alexa.
A world title on the line, massive swells throughout the series of events, and an ever growing world wide audience has spiked at an all time high. Exact numbers are still not a widely publicized thing, but these charts look positive.
THE NEXT BEST THING….
They say winning the Triple Crown is the next best thing from winning the World Title, well the numbers would agree. Online interest in not only the WCT Pipeline Masters was of significant notice, but the WQS events at Haliewa and Sunset brought a significant girth to the chart above compared to other top ranking events.
JOINING THE DOTS
So word is there will be a new common domain / platform / website in which we view online surfing next year. What will it look like? And how can they join the dots with these peaks in traffic? …To maintain this audience between the topline events, and a casual browsing audiences, who are online every day. Less than 3 months now until the Quiksilver Pro kicks off, I wonder who has been commissioned to develop such a project?
Can’t wait to see it.
]]>
Results from alexa.com show the spike in traffic to billabongpro.com, plus aspworldtour.com
Online traffic to the Billabong Pro at Jeffreys Bay, South Africa looks to have set a whole new level of viewers, higher then that of any other ASP Event in 2009, according to analysis of online reach using Alexa. Using the online traffic monitoring tool, the graph above shows the worldwide users peaking over the final 2 days of competition at a new level not seen all year.
Indepth statistics from official sources for all contests are not widely available, but a search using the Alexa tool, cross-referencing the ASP, Billabong, Rip Curl, Quiksilver and Boost Mobile Pro events would suggest that the amount of traffic to billabongpro.com could be an all time high for the webcast productions of professional surfing.
Alexa analysis of the major webcast platforms over past 2 years. The red line against the right hand side of the graph represents the Billabong Pro J-Bay. The Boost Mobile Pro and Rip Curl Search are right up there too.
The large spike in traffic is an extremely positive result for Billabong and all the sponsors, the ASP, the surfers and the wider surfing community; a well earnt justification that the time, money and effort invested into the webcasts continue to reach new levels and set new benchmarks in online sports broadcasting.
The J-Bay Cocktail
The combination of the Clash Of The Icons social experiementation, the best swell we’ve seen on tour all year, a giant slaying local hero, a resurgent world champion and a new king in the making, gelled together by Billabong’s interactive media prowess, were all the ingredients required in setting a new benchmark for the webcasts. As I mentioned in a previous post, it’s no longer just a webcast, it’s an interactive experience. And it continues to get better each contest.
South African’s Come Out To Play
In the biggest result of the contest, more surprising than the early eliminations of Kelly, Mick, Adriano and Taj, is that online traffic from South Africa was greater than any other country, making up 29% off all traffic, 6% more than the might of the USA, and more than 3 times that of Australian traffic. The results below show a healthy mix of the top surfing nations logging in to watch the action take place.
Demographic Analysis of Worldwide Users
I can’t wait for Trestles…
A Billabong model, popular with most walks of life. Just keep your distance from the footy players love
Billabong has topped the list of Australia’s most familiar sports sponsors, out-performing a whole host of mainstream brands, according to the latest report from research consultancy Sweeney Sports. Despite declining slightly from 32% sponsorship awareness to 30% from the previous survey, Billabong ranked equal 1st place with Kellog’s Nutri Grain breakfast cereal.
Rip Curl took out 8th place with 20% brand awareness, coming in behind powerhouses Nike, Ford and Adidas, whilst Quiksilver placed equal 14th alongside VB (Australia’s most popular beer), Fosters and Kia.
Results 1st published on Mumbrella, report the survey involved 1000 telephone interviews carried out late blast year and early this year. The previous survey covered 2006-2007.
Will Parko become the next Ricky Ponting? Australia's Most Marketable Sports Star
Results from the Sweeney Sports survey:
1 Billabong - 30% awareness;
1 Nutri-Grain - 30% +4
3 Nike - 28% -5
4 Ford - 26% -1
4 Uncle Tobys - 26% -1
6 Speedo - 22% +8
7 Adidas - 20% -3
8 Rip Curl - 19% +1
9 Holden/GMH - 18% -1
10 Toyota - 17% +2
10 Emirates - 17% 0
12 Telstra/ Telstra/Big Pond - 16% -8
12 Kellogg - 16% +1
14 VB (Victoria Bitter) - 13% -2
14 Foster’s - 13% -6 ?14 Kia - 13% -2
14 Quiksilver- 13% 0
18 KFC - 12% +10
18 3/three.com - 12%
20 Gatorade - 7% 0
The Revolution Will Be Webcast
This accomplishment is all the more impressive considering sports media coverage in Australia is heavily dominated by Cricket, Australian Rules, Rugby League, Rugby Union and Soccor (the real football!), all of whom are broadcast live on prime time television. This should add fuel to the fire that the marketing dollars spent online producing the webcasts, have been justified.
Statistics talk. Bullshit walks.
The footy and cricket reap lucrative TV broadcast deals leveraged from official figures measuring viewing audiences. The big question in my books, when will we seen an official body tracking, monitoring and reporting online audience figures for the ASP World Tour Webcast?
]]>
This story is taken straight from The Sydney Morning Herald. By Julian Lee.
FOR an ad agency or a television network, Billabong is the ultimate nightmare as a brand.
It does not make TV commercials, it does not book space on television. And its magazine ads are produced by its own team. Billabong is not just a surf brand, it is a media company, says the person in charge of producing the hours of surf-related content.
“This just ups the ante,” says Scott Wallace of the deal announced last week with Sony. “We are turning into a media company as well as a clothing company.”
The strategic partnership between the companies marries Sony’s expertise in video technology with Billabong’s street cred cool. Sony gets access to Billabong’s audience of tech-savvy surfies and followers while Billabong gets help in creating the content and getting it to as many people as possible.
Wallace, a former executive with the sports marketing company IMG, now vice-president, new media and strategic partnerships, is a busy man. Two weeks ago VAS, the company contracted to sell Billabong content around the world, was at a MIPCOM TV sales conference in Cannes marketing a 13-part series to potential buyers. “It’s centred around our athletes. It is less about the sport and more about the lifestyle of the athletes,” says Wallace.
The surf label produces up to 35 hours of high-definition video a year, drawing on events around the world – there’s almost one every week – and its small army of athletes as the subject.
“We use everything. We cut it up and use it for the web and then we use it for phone content.”
Each week Billabong produces 40 minutes of material to be used on mobile phone networks. When asked if it was working, Wallace is unable to share any figures but says: “It must be okay as they keep asking for more.”
A 25-strong audio visual team will be at the Billabong Pro Tahiti – one of four events in the world series the brand sponsors – in May to film the event, which will be made into a one-hour film that IMG sells around the world. During the tournament Billabong streams live feeds to its website, which attracts 1 million unique visitors during the event. Since last year the average visit has increased from 18 to 27 minutes, according to Billabong’s figures.
Now it is giving Sony Handycams to its athletes, who include surfers Joel Parkinson, Andy Irons, Taj Burrow and Tiago Pires, to film every aspect of their lives. Apparently there is demand to watch them eating breakfast, or at least the edited highlights, says Wallace.
For Sony’s marketing director, Toby Barbour, it is a way of getting his products before a younger audience. “We want to get them early so that we can follow [them] through the life stages with products such as Sony Ericsson mobile phones, Handycams and Bravia [TVs].”
But to what end does all of this serve Billabong? Wallace says it is hard to measure the return on investment of producing all this content, the cost of which he will not reveal. “I guess the ROI [return on investment] is about raising the profile of the sport, our athletes and, yes, ultimately our brand.”
He admits the proliferation of such content will help all surf brands but it is down to Billabong to bring that to life in its stores. As part of the Sony deal, the videos will be shown on Sony screens in 300 stores it owns around the world.
But it is clear that traditional communications such as TV ads do not work for the surf brand. “Our market is very tech-savvy … they all have a good still camera or a Handycam. [TV ads] are just not something they accept. ”
Tim Flattery, a director of Carat Engage, a branded content agency, says the announcement of a new broadband network has galvanised the industry. He predicts more companies will view the high-speed network’s ability to allow video content on demand as the turning point and move into areas such as that pioneered by Billabong.
“I think that will put to the sword the interruptive model. What we will see more of in the future is a sponsorship model for television.”
]]>
Very interesting, Occy just dropped the comment that there have been 3 million people tune in to the Billabong Pro Tahiti. As much as I REALLY want to believe it, I don’t. But, down the line, it’s not out of the question.
Whilst I try do a little investigating into finding out some more accurate figures, here’s something that definitely drove mainstream awareness through the roof.
Channel 7’s new ‘Sunday Night’ current affairs program ran a big feature on Mitch Parkinson and a bunch of grommets dream trip to Tahiti. Whilst it wasn’t quite a Guthy Renker commercial, the PR & Media team at Billabong definitely earnt their keep with this piece, not to mention Channel 10’s daily Sports Tonight updates.
]]>
Stop, collaborate and listen. Stab & Billabong are back with a brand new invention. A user generated content promotion that goes above and beyond the usual ‘send us ya home made snaps’.
OK. UGC driven by public voting isn’t a new concept, but the Little Weeds program has all the trimmings and incentives to get even a dry stonewall frothing. And better yet, opened themselves up to a younger, more creative, digitally savvy demographic, that attracts the young female market. When was the last time you heard of a 13 year old girl wanting to be the next Miss ‘Can Of Brut Deodorant’ Tracks?
If you’re not familiar with the concept by now. “The Little Weed Project exists to free you from the mundane. To set you on the righteous path. This is your best and last chance to live a surf-based dream in one of five ways: as surfer, writer, model, photographer or filmmaker. Stab and Billabong are providing you with a platform in which you will compete against fellow dreamers by tossing your wares on the internet. There will be three six-week heats where the online community votes for your product, be it a quality backside gouge or a hot little pose or a stellar photograph or an interesting turn of phrase.”
Since the introduction of Online Editor Jed Smith earlier in the year, and the launch of the Little Weeds promotion earlier in the year, traffic to Stabmag.com has almost tripled (according to Compete.com).
Whilst Jed’s somewhat car crash (I can’t look, but I can’t look away) video posts from Tahiti no doubt drove page impressions heavily through the month of May, the new users from Little Weeds extends beyond the realm of grumpy bearded men posting anonymous comments on the message boards. Check this out.
Stab Magazine Monthly Online Traffic. Courtesy of compete.com
Without attempting to drown in a pool irony, I thought it only appropriate to kick of this blog, with a post about blogs. I have to admit; this is about the 4th blog I’ve started, most of which went nowhere fast. Why?
Time and content.
Finding time to blog when you’ve got a number of commitments such as work, family, and not to mention surfing as much as possible often makes it hard for me to pull my finger out and start posting. Not to mention developing a niche content plan.
I’m not a photographer. I don’t shoot video. Though I wish I did both. So the chances of creating exclusive, quality content are slim and nil. My previous efforts saw me heading down the same 10 Questions road as every other blog and website out there. Whilst that was fun, it wasn’t unique or compelling.
So I went back to the drawing board to try and carve out a niche gap in the increasingly competitive world of digital surf media. And that’s exactly where I found the gap.
Is it just me, or has the number of surfing websites and blogs seemed to have doubled since the start of 2009 compared to years past? More so, it seems traditional print media have finally pulled their fingers out and realised they need to be just as competitive online as they are in print. But we’ll come back to that in the next few posts.
I’m a regular reader of all the industry press I can get my hands on, including Boardsport Source, Australian Surf Business and Transworld Business. But being a digital media enthusiast / junkie / tosser, I’m yet to find anywhere dedicated to the online environment of surf media in the digital space.
Surfing is leading the way in global sports with live web casting, and the endless amount of content that makes the sport so rich. So hence, this blog will be dedicated to digital surf media.
10 Blogs You Should Check Out (In Alphabetical Order)
5Ones Very ‘cali action sports’ (surf / skate / snow), which is all the more noticeable if you’re not from California, but this blog seems to be getting better all the time with the quality and frequency of their content.
Billabong I have to say, I’m on here almost every day because they’re constantly hooking me in with links via Twitter. Some brands don’t get how to differentiate between their website, and a blog, but they seem to have adapted a great strategy to creating content for the blog.
Board Of Marketing You guessed it, a marketing blog checking out some of the hottest marketing campaigns in surfing. Still early days for this blog, but definitely one to keep an eye on.
Caught Inside This is a cool blog because they’ve carved themselves a niche. Surfing movie news, reviews and insider tips. Not the most comprehensive blog by any means, and it’s very California (not there’s anything wrong with that), but if you’re after some surf clips to watch, and can’t be arsed with youtube, it’s worth a look.
.tv/dion Dion seems to have THE best job in the world. Surf. Party. Blog. BIG kudos to Globe for being one of the 1st on the case with letting free surfers run wild with the blog.
The Goods Life The social media stars of the ASP world tour. I say that because CJ and Damo are totally on it with their blog, posting pretty much every day on their adventures around the globe. Pun intended.
The Mountain And The Wave For a global brand, Quiksilver’s blog feels very pro-USA (which is not a bad thing), but I’d like to see them utilise their worldwide network with producing content from some other regions. But there is sh*t loads of content here which you could spend hours / days digesting. Digg in.
Modern Collective Incase you haven’t heard, Modern Collective is the brand spanking new project from Taylor Steele protégé Kai Neville. After kicking round for a while making awsomse DVDs for the Australian surf rags, and most recently having a major hand in the Poor Specimen production Stranger Than Fiction, Modern Collective channels the current psychedelic-electro-triangle-rave scene, with big crazy airs and busting of fins at every opportunity with the likes of Jordy, Julian, Dane and the newest of nu-skool.
RVCA This is one of those ones where the brand website adopts the blog format. And with the very strong artistic focus of RVCA, it works perfect for them. Cool as f**k. Please send me some clothes.
The Rock Rip Curl have adapted the calendar format blog, which is hardly revolutionary, but works really well for The Rock project. Daily blog entries over 20 days in Hawaii. Keeps me clicking on everyday. Hours of fun here.
]]>