Jacksonville, Florida is popular for travelers on the hunt for beaches and sunshine — but Katie Mitura, CMO of Visit Jacksonville, saw a strategic opportunity to establish the destination as a must-see for the surfing community and drive visitation from this new niche audience segment.
The vision was clear, but without the resources to prioritize it, the story of Jacksonville’s surf culture remained largely untold. That changed with a strategic conversation with MediaOne Digital. When asked what she would love to be doing that hadn’t yet been possible, Mitura’s answer was simple: “I would love to be able to tell the story of our surf community.”
From there, the idea quickly gained momentum. In order to build a successful campaign, the team needed a way to tell the story about Jacksonville’s vibrant surf community in a way that felt authentic and scalable. That’s where our Brand Alliance strategy comes in.
Rather than approaching the challenge as a traditional content or media buy, Mitura and Visit Jacksonville leaned into a brand alliance model to solve storytelling gaps while smartly solving resource challenges. Together with MediaOne, the team evaluated brands that authentically aligned with surfing culture and would see value in partnering with a destination rooted in the sport.
MediaOne tapped both GoPro and Catch Surf as natural partners for the initiative. Both brands not only brought credibility in the surfing space, but also helped identify athletes, artists, and influencers who were already deeply connected to Jacksonville Beach and its surf community.
To ensure authenticity from the start, Visit Jacksonville and MediaOne conducted outreach meetings with local surfers, influencers, and tourism stakeholders. “By partnering with MediaOne and leading travel brands, we were able to tell that story through our own community — creating authenticity and something the entire city can stand behind” Mitura said.
These conversations surfaced shared interests, opportunities, potential hurdles, and directly informed the creative direction. The result was an umbrella positioning that felt organic and ownable: Jacksonville epitomizes the Soul of Surf.
With the Soul of Surf platform established, the strategy centered on bringing the story to life in-market. The MediaOne team coordinated two in-market activations to create connection with the local community. Catch Surf allowed local surfers to test their boards near the iconic Jacksonville pier, and a local artist created unique works of art using surfboards as a canvas. These experiences embedded athlete-influencers, many of them genuine local surfers, directly into the Soul of Surf story and the destination.
This community-first approach allowed the team to capture real-time, unscripted content across beaches, surf sessions, art activations like live surfboard painting, and local hangouts. Influencers documented their experiences throughout the destination, sharing impressions with highly engaged audiences and generating powerful social reach.
The content fueled a robust digital ecosystem, including a central landing page, immersive social storytelling, and digital campaigns with clear calls to action. Sweepstakes with prizes including trips to Jacksonville and branded merchandise from GoPro and Catch Surf further extended engagement and incentivized participation from the target audience.
The campaign generated measurable impact across awareness, engagement, and owned audiences:
12.3 million potential organic impressions highlighting Jacksonville’s surf culture
58,824 landing page views
129,062 YouTube video views
6,863 sweepstakes entries, generating 2,544 new opt-ins for Visit Jacksonville’s email database
Beyond the numbers, the Soul of Surf campaign established Jacksonville as a credible, authentic surf destination — told by the community itself. The launch has inspired pride from locals and fueled Visit Jacksonville’s long-term commitment to the platform, with plans to expand the Soul of Surf campaign to new audience targets.
For Mitura, a personal passion project turned into a successful brand strategy – proving that the powerful storytelling can lead to tangible results.
“Now, people see Jacksonville Beach as a place where some of the world’s best surfers live, work, and learn to surf,” Mitura said. “This campaign ultimately helped us evolve our destination’s brand, and unlocked a new avenue to drive economic growth for our community.”