96FM is a radio station based in Perth, Western Australia. They’re also a sponsor of The Rottnest Channel Swim, an annual 19.7km swim from Cottesloe Beach to Rottnest Island, which attracts thousands of swimmers. Every year, 96FM do a great job of showing their support for swimmers on shore, but what use is that when they’re out in the open ocean?
So we created the Go Buoy – a regular marker buoy that we outfitted with an underwater broadcasting system. Sound travels more clearly underwater than it does through air and our underwater speakers had a range of up to 1km in every direction. This allowed 96FM to broadcast their music underwater for the first time. We put together a playlist of 96FM’s best motivational songs and placed the buoy 500m from the finish line, giving swimmers an extra boost when they needed it most.
As a result we reached 100% of our target market and generated substantial earned media on radio, Twitter, Facebook and in print. We also generated a lot of goodwill towards 96FM and managed to get ‘Eye of the Tiger’ stuck in the heads of countless swimmers (see case study).