OZONEKITES&WINGS
- Client
- OZONE KITES & WINGS
- Project
- Five years running the marketing of a global brand
- Date
- 2020-2025
Five years leading Ozone’s marketing from Backery Studio, as an external team working from the inside: strategy, production, channel and launches for a global maker of kitesurf, wing, foil and snowkite gear with its own factory.
- 01
BRAND DEFINITION AND DIRECTION
- 02
THE FACTORY
- 03
LAUNCHES
- 04
PRODUCTION
- 05
GRAPHIC SYSTEM
- 06
CHANNEL AND WEBSITE
- 07
SOCIAL AND COMMUNITY
- 08
PRODUCT MARKETING
- 09
RESULTS
01 · BRAND DEFINITION AND DIRECTION
KNOWN FOR THE PRODUCT
Since 1998: the Toyota of the kite industry. A brand you recognise not for how it advertises, but for how its gear performs in every discipline: kitesurf, wing, foil and snowkite. To grow it, we set a direction and a language built on that: a clean, considered image with the product at the centre, one that never promises more than it delivers. Gear that performs, customers who recommend it, and a consistent aesthetic resting on that. From there, marketing direction (B2B and B2C strategy, communication and planning) and the creative direction that carries that language into every asset.
02 · THE FACTORY
WHERE IT ALL STARTS
What made that language credible was the factory. There are very few in kiting, and nearly all of them produce for many brands at once. Ozone has its own: more than a thousand workers making gear for Ozone alone. That is its great competitive edge. It controls production, the development of every product with a very strong R&D department, the launches and the stock. And the same factory builds paragliders and skydiving and wingsuit gear, sports where the equipment holds a person in the air. Few proofs of quality say more than that. Which is why it had to be pushed. Everything this case tells starts there: every product R&D signs off opens a launch.
03 · LAUNCHES
ALMOST ONE A MONTH
- 01Concept and idea
- 02Copy and campaign
- 03Product in the studio
- 04Location shoot with riders
- 05Digital assets
- 06B2B release
- 07B2C release: site, newsletter and paid
Almost one new product a month, each with its demand spike. Every new release was a sales injection, so launches were what kept the business going. Planning was done with R&D and they fired the starting gun: until they signed the product off, marketing stayed out. From there the whole product had to be dressed, from how it is communicated down to the last asset. And always in this order, which is not incidental: the channel first, the consumer second. A distributor who finds out on Instagram about a product they are meant to sell is already late.
04 · PRODUCTION
PERFORMANCE, WELL DRESSED
Performance first: the gear has to be seen genuinely performing, on water and on snow, with riders who know how to push it. Then, how it looks: clean framing, careful light and every attribute of the product in view, from the profile of a wing to the stitching on a board. Between eight and ten international shoots a year, plus the studio product sessions. And behind every one, the rider programme: yearly contracts, gear and trips. No team, no imagery, so managing riders is part of the shoot itself.
05 · GRAPHIC SYSTEM
EVERYTHING THAT IS NOT A PHOTO
Magazine adverts, catalogues, banners, newsletter templates, highlight covers and thumbnails. Plus animated 3D assets for campaigns and product pages. Very different pieces that have to look like the same brand, which is what turns a pile of files into a system. With a launch a month, that system is what lets you keep the pace without rebuilding everything each time.
06 · CHANNEL AND WEBSITE
IF THE SHOP SELLS, THE BRAND GROWS
- 01Performance: what each release improves and which need it meets
- 02Colours, designs and customisation: the kit of their dreams
- 03Media packs: photo, video, catalogues and shop displays
- 04Merchandise: stickers, caps and more, to take the brand further
Ozone sells through distributors and shops, so the job did not end at selling: that network needed the tools to sell more. If they sold more, the brand grew, which is why the channel was looked after down to the last detail. In parallel, the website: product pages and buying experience, with the in-house designers and developers.
07 · SOCIAL AND COMMUNITY
FIVE YEARS POSTING
Social strategy and day-to-day management for the whole engagement, plus the newsletters. Posting for that long means feeding the rhythm with your own material and holding the same voice across seasons, launches and different sports, from kitesurf to snowkite. And in a brand that leans on word of mouth, social is also where you see whether customers speak well of you.
PRODUCT IN THE STUDIO
THE PRODUCT, UP CLOSE
Studio sessions for product pages, catalogues and launches: materials, stitching and finishes, on white and on black.
08 · PRODUCT MARKETING
THE PART WE PUSHED FOR
This was not in the brief. The process said marketing came in once R&D signed off. We were an external team, but we worked from the inside and put a lot of hours into the brand, so we pushed to get in earlier: talking to product and sales about colours, materials and finishes, judged by how they will look and what will help sell them. It was not the company’s priority, and we are not going to claim it was. But if everything starts at the factory, marketing can start there too: before the product is finished, deciding how it will look and why it will sell.
09 · RESULTS
FROM TECHNICAL BRAND TO BENCHMARK
We started in 2020, in the middle of the pandemic. The sport boomed and Ozone made the most of it: 2021 was its best year in seven, with 56% more orders than 2020. Then came the downturn, with warehouses full across the industry, and the brand grew again: 19% more orders in 2024 than in 2023. The boom was there for everyone. Making the most of it, and coming out of the downturn early, depends on what happens inside: almost a launch a month, a channel ready to sell, and an image that in five years made Ozone a benchmark brand. People who buy it know they pay more, but they get gear that is reliable, well made and built to last. And it showed at the very top. Jamie Overbeek, then a team rider, took second at the 2022 Red Bull King of the Air on an Ozone Edge, aged 16 and the youngest ever to reach that podium. The following year he set the WOO world height record: 35.3 metres on an Ozone R1 V4. The product delivers the performance; signing riders, negotiating with them and bringing them to shoots and events was part of our job.