Surf Hero

The Sutherland Shire Council approached COG Marketing with an exciting challenge: to craft the creative and art direction for the Surf Hero program, a beach education website tailored specifically for kids. The program’s mission was to combine fun and engaging activities with vital surf safety education to empower young beachgoers. However, achieving this required more than just a visually appealing website—it needed an imaginative, cohesive, and age-appropriate creative direction to resonate with its young audience.

The existing resources for surf safety education, while effective, lacked the interactive and dynamic qualities necessary to captivate children. Surf Hero aimed to close this gap by offering interactive activities, games, and characters like Sonny, Dr. Rip, Max, and Sally to teach kids about safety signs, rip currents, learning to surf, and the critical roles of Lifeguards and Lifesavers.

The key challenge lay in designing a website that not only delivered educational content but also kept kids engaged and excited to learn. It was critical to develop a cohesive creative direction that communicated surf safety messages effectively while maintaining a sense of fun and adventure.

To address these challenges, COG Marketing partnered with Sutherland Shire Council to create a vibrant and compelling creative direction for the Surf Hero program. Our team approached the project with a focus on making the program’s surf safety messages accessible, engaging, and memorable for kids. The solutions we implemented included:

• Development of Key Visual Themes: We designed a playful and colourful visual aesthetic that aligned with the beach and ocean theme. This included creating custom illustrations and animations for the program’s characters—Sonny, Dr. Rip, Max, and Sally Fitzgibbons—to make them relatable and memorable.
• Interactive Design Elements: We incorporated gamified elements and interactive features to capture kids’ attention and encourage active participation. Activities were designed to educate children on critical topics like identifying rip currents, reading safety signs, and understanding the roles of Lifeguards and Lifesavers.
• User-Friendly Navigation: Recognizing the target audience’s age group, we implemented simple and intuitive navigation, ensuring kids could explore the website independently while easily accessing all activities and learning modules.
• Consistent Messaging Framework: We ensured that all creative elements, from character dialogues to activity instructions, were aligned with the overarching goal of surf safety education. The tone was kept friendly, engaging, and age-appropriate.
• Brand Alignment: The creative direction was carefully aligned with the Sutherland Shire Council’s values and branding to ensure the program complemented the broader surf education initiatives.

The result was a dynamic and cohesive creative direction that brought the Surf Hero program to life, making surf safety education an enjoyable experience for kids.

In this instance, COG Marketing provided Sutherland Shire Council with the Creative Direction. By outsourcing this specialist marketing discipline to COG, Sutherland Shire Council was able to reduce the time invested by their own internal team by a large enough margin that basically equaled the COG Marketing product fee itself. Not only that, the result was professional, and continues to educate kids today.

The creative and art direction provided by COG Marketing delivered tangible benefits that helped the Surf Hero program succeed:

• Increased Engagement: The playful and interactive design captivated children’s attention, ensuring they remained engaged while learning essential surf safety information.
• Improved Accessibility: The user-friendly website design made the Surf Hero program accessible to kids of varying ages, allowing them to navigate and interact with the content independently.
• Enhanced Surf Safety Awareness: By combining fun activities with critical educational messages, Surf Hero empowered young beachgoers to recognize potential dangers and stay safe in the water.
• Strengthened Community Outreach: The program extended the Sutherland Shire Council’s surf safety education efforts, reaching a broader audience and reinforcing its commitment to community well-being.
• Lasting Impact: The vibrant creative direction ensured the program left a lasting impression on its young audience, fostering a culture of surf safety awareness among the next generation.

By partnering with COG Marketing, the Sutherland Shire Council successfully brought the Surf Hero program to life. The creative direction not only elevated the program’s appeal but also ensured its messages resonated deeply with its target audience, creating a safer and more informed community of young beachgoers.