Local Motion

How do you grow your brand when "Hawaiian beachwear" is being made in Italy by wannabees?

Local Motion was a growing international brand when surf clothing started to reach one of its cyclical peaks. Companies all over the world jumped on the bandwagon and Local Motion needed to respond.

In the surf industry especially, credibility and market share begin with acceptance by the hard core surfers. Hawaii is the Mecca for surfers and our solution was to drive home the concept that Local Motion is a hard core Hawaiian surf company.

The branding strategy provided a direct link to the birth of surfing. We carried it out by emblazoning a broad array of products with the four promotional symbols and a consistent message: "Original Hawaiian Beachwear".

The advertising featured team riders in radical ads that clearly stood out from the competition in the visually competitive surf magazines. The program was successful, profitable and managed to win numerous awards.

The brand identity was put to use in every conceivable way, in the stores as display, on watches, key chains, hang tags, towels, clothing, decals and whatever else it could stick to.

We printed the hang tags in many different colors on a variety of papers. On a big day at Ala Moana you'd always see a few surfbugs with the hang tags taped in the back windows. The program got throug to the hard core surfers, the key audience in building a credible surf brand.

Local Motion couldn't afford the Michael Jordans of the surf scene but had built a quirky stable of classic and up and coming surfers. Since we couldn't compete on star appeal, we decided to make their personal idiosynchrocies "live large." We interviewed the various surfers, photographed them in the studio, and then built them into an ad series.

The ads were dimensional collages assembled from xeroxed typography, live action and studio shots. The collages were photographed with a 4x5 camera and separated directly to film. In the pre-computer era, this saved considerably on production costs but more importantly in the highly visual surf industry, we achieved a unique and commanding look.

Local Motion's Lahaina store in 1989. The promotional posters were still there in 1997.

Mike Madlener took time off from school to drop by the studio and do his thing. He's wearing the identity and the keychain in his pocket has it on too.