Vans - U.S. Open of Surf

Every year since 2013, Vans hosts the U.S. Open of Surf in Huntington Beach. After we had repositioned our surf category, we wanted to change the way we approached the event. We looked at it though the lens of experimentation and innovation: what if we put on an event at the beach that left it cleaner than we found it? We used beach trash to construct the visual identity of the event, and many of the displays. We incorporated beach cleanup into the event and we built multiple informational kiosks into the event, like the giant instagrammable wave constructed out of found golfballs, highlighting how much just one source of pollution can impact the ocean. The event had record attendance and acted as a blueprint for other events to leave the site and community better for the brand's interaction.