Oakley x Fuel: The Takeover
Oakley Week Teaser On FUEL TV from Matthew Murray on Vimeo.
My homey Matt Murray at Oakley has been on a top secret grind for the last few months. Well I just found out why: he’s been architecting Oakley’s takeover of Fuel TV’s “The Daily Habit” going down all this week. I wanted to hear more about this innovative branding x content collabo and Matt was more than willing to give me the scoop. Peep the interview after the jump and tune into “The Daily Habit” on Fuel every day this week to see how it all turned out.
The Daily Habit’s host Pat Parnell and Oakley’s Matt Murray maxin’.
What led up the Oakley takeover of “The Daily Habit?”
Back when I worked for myself over three years ago, FUEL TV was one of my biggest clients. I did a lot of marketing and new media work with Jake Munsey and John Stouffer. At that time we would brainstorm ideas of how to involve endemic brands more organically, something along the lines of advertorial, not just straight 30 seconds spots on the network. One of the ideas was leveraging FUEL TV’s unique and original content driven shows, “The Daily Habit” as one of those potential outlets. After a few years at Oakley, I had been waiting to drop my idea on both my boss and FUEL TV and basically the idea materialized through our guru / contracted media / advertising contact Bob Graff, or Graffy to must of us in the industry. Graffy called me a few weeks before the Summer Olympics asking me if I knew of any unique ways to activate around the brand on FUEL TV. I pitched him my idea of Oakley Week and how it would be very different from DC Shoes Week. The best part being that it would have sales, marketing and educational angles. The pitch was simple – Own all the 22 minutes of each show, including the sub segments, and leverage all the content to display all sides of Oakley. Graffy asked me to put this into a PowerPoint, which I pitched to my boss Pat Mac three weeks later in Beijing over coffee. His biggest question was where the idea had come from. After explaining it to him, he said I could run with it, but would need to be careful. Two weeks later I was home from Beijing at ASR pitching the idea with Graffy to Tomlin, Paridon, Stouffer and CJ at FUEL TV. A bunch of questions arose, but they dug the idea. From there Peter Vesey (VP of Sales), Graffy and myself worked out costs and best practices. By the end of September we were booking flights to Aspen for “The Meeting.” Then we met up with “The Daily Habit” crew a few days later in Breck to scout out the location of the main stage shoot and all sub segments. It was on.
Who all was involved?
A lot of people were involved, but the key people I would like to point out are the following:
Pat Mac, VP of Global SM at Oakley, Matty Swanson, Sports Marketing Manager & VP of 1242 Productions, Ryan Evert, Rolling O Lab Manager, Steve Genzler, Sales Manager, and everyone at FUEL – from CJ to Paridon to Jenn to Jeff.
What’s this takeover gonna give to the Fuel audience that they haven’t seen before?
Truly unique and never before seen coverage… the show is literally placed in the said action sports element – snow!
How crazy were the logistics in pulling this takeover off?
Wow, where to start on this one. To be honest I would rather not say too much because it was a lot of experience from many different people and trial by error that made this weeklong series possible. All I have to say is permits and licensing take work, plus housing for some 50 plus crew and athletes, and making shoots go off on time and finish on time while the weather can wreak havoc if you are not prepared – all add up to a bigger project then any of us planned. One nerd stat would be the fact that over 20 PowerPoints were made to keep everyone in the loop throughout the process.
What do you think are some of the dopest parts?
Dopest parts… man the whole week is dope for many different reasons. But I think the private night pipe shoot with KP, Tanner, Simon, Torstein, Craven, Jossi, etc. was insane. We even had about 100 VIPs from the Copper REVTour on the pipe to cheer on the athletes.
What else does Oakley have up its sleeve this winter?
Just watch Winter X Games 2009… we have some sick content that will be airing, an insane VIP Media Night for industry heads, VIP Section at the bottom of the SuperPipe and the Rolling O Lab will be on the main grounds… people are going to trip over the fact we have that on site – especially a few specific brands. Another cool project will be the Oakley Rider Studio – which will be a viral / social network / video widget but it takes a little more to explain in an interview question.
Sounds dope man. Aight any shoutouts?
Shit this is tough… so many people… here is the short list.
Pat Mac, he’s coolest boss ever. Matty Swanson, he made sure I did not lose my mind, plus the guy is a genius. Ryan Evert, who always believed in my ideas and backed them with his budget, how cool is that? The FUEL TV Crew – Paridon, CJ, Stouffer, Jeff, Jennifer, Camille, Parnell, Sean and everyone else – you guys rocked to work with. The Breck and Copper Crews – Kristen, Ryan, Carly, Vanessa, Pete, Lauren and Maja. Finally, the Target Crew – Troy and Laura for the killer VIP Lounge.
Thanks Timbo!
