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  The contest scene Aliäó»i Beach

Reef’s global vice president of marketing Kevin Flanagan answered some questions for me from Hawaii about the business impact of the Reef Hawaiian Pro.

Kevin Flanagan,
Reef vice president
of global marketing.

The contest is ongoing, with the mens finals expected Friday or Saturday.

Why is the contest important for Reef?

First, it is a great way to give back to the Hawaiian marketplace and the sport of surfing. Next, it allows Reef to present new product lines to a wide audience.

Reef is well known for its sandals but this event gives us a chance to communicate our product extension including our girl’s swim and sportswear line.

The event with its Webcast is an incredible vehicle to weave in awareness for new Reef products.

Can you describe the business that gets done in Hawaii? Do you meet with retailers? Athletes? Others?

Reef’s Girls new swimsuits are getting
exposure at the event.

Hawaii is the epicenter of surf industry during November and December. We have a team house at Rocky’s where we surf everyday, get surf shots and entertain media and retailers.

Most importantly, we try to show everyone a good time. Reef is a fun brand so when athletes such as Mick Fanning win the World Title everyone shows up at our house to celebrate with him.

How many people from Reef go? (Reef is based in Carlsbad)

We sent 13 Reefers to the Reef Hawaiian Pro.

We feel our employees are our best ambassadors. It was the quickest way to make people realize that the event has a new sponsor.

The Reef marketing team hanging on the beach.

Any special marketing around the event?

There are several tactics we use to help promote the event including print ads, online ads, in-store point of purchase, consumer contests, TV Commercials and promotional products such as t-shirts, hats, posters and stickers.

However, the major focus of our event is on the Webcast.

This is where we reach the bulk of our audience. We created team rider profile videos, advertorial style product clips and many other video segments to help communicate our brand message.

On top of that, we have an amazing lineup of Webcast personalities who are respected veterans of the sport and bring strong credibility to our brand.

All the grass roots and mainstream marketing must have paid off as we broke the event Webcast numbers for the girl’s finals with 15,000 unique users tuning into the Webcast viewing over 100,000 pages.

We expect the men’s final to be held this Friday or Saturday in 15-foot surf. If conditions are good, we’ll smash the final Web record.

How do you measure the business success of the event?

Immediate success can be measure by people on the beach or eyeballs on the Webcast, but we are looking at the Reef Hawaiian Pro as a long-term brand health investment.