Rory Kramer X Sea-Doo

Summary:

Rory Kramer assembled the ultimate crew of creators & friends to capture and share stories in one of the world’s wildest areas to ride, explore, and adventure by Sea-Doo: Lake Powell during a Halloween full moon.

The Crew:

Rory Kramer, Amy Kramer, Parks Bonifay, Matt Komo, Jeremiah Davis, Bryan Soderlind, Evan Paterakis, Joseph Shaw

My Role:

Storytelling Concept & Creative Direction: I wanted this trip and the resulting content to elevate Rory’s and Sea-Doo’s brands: Fun, Adventurous, Inclusive, Unique. The perfect storm of ideas and timing came together. Covid restrictions were lightened up for the first time, so we were all hungry for some human interaction. Rory and Amy had just gotten married, they wanted to put a crew of their close friends together, it was a full moon on Halloween which only happens once every 20 years. Lake Powell provided the perfect playground and backdrop for an overabundance of incredible stories, escapades, and content creation. The stars, and moon, had aligned.

Project Management & Execution: The challenges and hurdles on this trip were immense. 4 days on a remote lake with no contact to a store, wifi, cell service, supplies. Shooting water vehicles and trying to make that look fun in 30 degree lows. Meals, bathrooms, showers, and quality sleep for 14 people. Curating epic days and nights for a rowdy crew and trying to wrangle them together to create content for our ambitious content deliverables. And a budget 1/10th of what you’d expect this to cost. This took an absurd amount of planning, communication, and teamwork to pull off. I hired a friend Bob Reed at UpLake Adventures to provide his local knowledge of the area.

Content Distribution: Like any good content activation, there was a significant Owned and Earned portion of deliverables. This activation laid the foundation for what would become a Sea-Doo content series called Adventure Alerts. We would tease the trip from the Sea-Doo Instagram to build anticipation, then we would dump 3 days of hero content across IG feed & story, Facebook, our website, and our CRM. Meanwhile, everyone on the trip would be posting to their channels, from their perspectives, as well. I was responsible for negotiating and scheduling those deliverables.

Relationship & Experience Management: It’s often underestimated how challenging it can be to keep everyone happy. It’s an art form to ensure everyone delivers on their pieces of the puzzle and has a positive experience. With proactive & clear communication and proper planning, it’s possible to be a friend to the talent & stakeholders, and a representative of the brand.

House Boat Captain: Luckily I’ve got my Captain’s License from when I lived in the Cayman Islands, so I was able to safely operate and manage the 75ft houseboat we rented. Although this is a glorified leadership role, it comes with a tremendous amount of responsibility and commitment. I woke up at 3am every morning to move the boat so the crew woke up in a new and exciting location each morning. We responded to 3 emergency situations with grace: One narrowly avoided collision with land, one sewage backup issue, and a broken generator. A quality captain is prepared for the expected, but is more importantly, adaptable to the unforeseen.

Results

4:1 ROI (goal of 3:1)

Earned Media:

26 Instagram Feed Posts, 145 IG Story Posts, 3 IG Reels, 1 Youtube video

Total results: 805k views

Owned Media:

5 IG Story Sets: 1 leadup, 2 during the action, 2 recap

1 IG Feed post, 1 IGTV video

Total results: 615k views, 454k interactions, 21k engagements