Founder and former triathlon champion, Scott Unsworth was passionate about creating better, faster wetsuits than those on the market. That relentless desire to use cutting edge innovation to fuel the best performance remains with Orca today. Orca is one of the original triathlon brands, they perceive themselves as a brand that is made by triathletes, for triathletes and is used by many top triathletes and open water swimmers.
Orca provides its athletes with the confidence to achieve whatever they want, by empowering them with the strength to reach further than they ever thought possible.
The Challenge
Understanding that the needs of their swimmers are very different, Orca has been working tirelessly over the last few years to create a new way of targeting triathletes, focusing on their swimming technique. Orca came to the conclusion that there are three main types of swimmers and they started designing their triathlon wetsuits according to this new strategic approach. Orca created a product architecture which makes it easier for customers to understand their wetsuit requirements – a wetsuit matrix.
Orca wanted to communicate to their audience this new way of designing wetsuits and to let them know that Orca has the wetsuit they need to be better in the water, whatever their specific needs, budget or swimming abilities.
Orca tasked Brandwave with creating a campaign that would make its audience aware of their new wetsuit matrix, and to sell the idea of three swimmer types. The campaign needed to work across all marketing channels and to create a sales tool for Orcas distributors and retailers.
The Result
With many triathletes and swimmers in our team, this campaign was really a highlight for us all to work on. Combining our knowledge of the Orca brand with our personal passion and experience of the triathlon sector, the Brandwave team developed a strategic design tool to effectively communicate the new range architecture on a long-term basis – “The Orca Swim Scale”. The scale is supported graphically by x3 key icons that Brandwave developed, which clearly communicate the x3 different swimmer types and make it easy for Orca consumers to understand which product is most appropriate for their needs and the type of swimmer they are.
We developed a creative and digital campaign to support the launch of “The Orca Swim Scale”, with the inspiring yet educational campaign; “Time to suit up”. The campaign speaks to triathletes on a personal level, putting them directly on the start line with a consistent pro-active call-to-action message to find and try Orca’s new wetsuit range. This campaign also clearly communicates Orca’s new range architecture and swimmer type strategy by asking consumers directly “What Type Of Swimmer Are You?”
The strong imagery which visually communicates the message and supports “The Orca Swim Scale” was conceived and produced by Brandwave. We shot this shoot in a studio shoot, using Orca’s own brand ambassadors to ensure authenticity of imagery. The campaign is also supported by animated videos, which we developed to further communicate the x3 different swimmer types, utilising our icons to show the product characteristics and benefits for digital and POS purposes. We also provided Orca with a supporting digital guideline document, in order to maintain campaign consistency across all channels.
