Surfrider Foundation

TASK

Surfrider Foundation Australia engaged Studio Oi to develop and deliver their ‘Adopt a Beach’ campaign. The goal was to move quickly, capture attention, and inspire local communities to take ownership of their beaches through clean-up action.

WHO IS SURFRIDER FOUNDATION?

Surfrider Foundation is a global grassroots organisation that began in California in 1984 and has had a strong presence in Australia since 1991. Their mission is to protect and enjoy the world’s oceans, waves, and beaches through community-powered campaigns.

CHALLENGE

The Adopt a Beach program couldn’t roll out a blanket message. Each of the nine Northern Beaches sites faced different issues, from cigarette butts to bulky dumped waste, and each had its own demographic to engage. Families, teenagers, early morning swimmers, and late-night barbecue crowds all responded to different tones. The challenge lay in building a unified campaign that celebrated the individuality of each beach while driving collective responsibility.

Surfrider also needed to honour the businesses and organisations that partnered with each location, ensuring their contributions were visible and valued. It required a campaign structure that inspired action, created efficiencies for a volunteer-led organisation, and maintained consistent messaging across a mix of local voices, digital platforms, and on-the-ground events.

SOLUTION

We started with discovery sessions, mapping the dynamics of each beach and profiling the people who use them. This strategy informed a suite of tailored taglines and copy, ranging from cheeky lines aimed at younger audiences to softer messages for family audiences, all anchored in community activism. Campaign favourites include: Let’s Cut the Crap at the Cove, and Don’t Do the Dirty on DY.

Our design and copy processes ran in tandem. Visual ideas shaped wordplay, and words influenced design concepts across posters, social media reels, and community assets. We created a dedicated Adopt a Beach social channel to reduce clutter on Surfrider’s main account and enable the campaign to evolve into a sub-brand. To help Surfrider maintain streamlined efficiencies, we established project management tools and provided Canva templates, enabling Surfrider to continue running the campaign in-house with agility and cost-effectiveness.

We provided every partner business involved in the nine beaches a platform to spread their message. Social reels and localised content highlighted their contributions, strengthening ties between Surfrider, the community, and the businesses supporting the cause.

By tailoring tone and content to each location, while keeping a unifying thread of activism, we delivered a campaign that felt both local and collective.

SERVICES

Discovery session
Campaign strategy
Design
Copywriting
Photography & video
Production
Social media content
Design templates
Project management systems

CLIENT VALUE

For Surfrider Foundation, Studio Oi proved to be a partner who listens and adapts. We worked quickly, offered cost-effective solutions for a non-profit, and built a campaign that Surfrider could own and manage beyond our involvement. What made it most meaningful was working on something close to our hearts: a cause-driven project where creative strategy translated directly into community action.