Rip Curl turned surf-watch data into the world's first virtual surf contest

Rip Curl's Search GPS watch tracked surfers' sessions, but the data mostly sat in an app while surfers cared about competing, not decimal points. VML Sydney asked what would happen if every logged surf became a contest entry.

The Rip Curl Virtual Pro was the world's first virtual surf competition: during a 10-day window, any Search watch user's surf was automatically entered and scored by an algorithm on distance, waves, speed and more, producing a global leaderboard. Amateurs competed against each other exactly like pros — the 2023 winner was a primary-school teacher, Nick Cashin.

The event turned product telemetry into an owned media property: season 2, presented by Western Australia, drew surfers from 34 countries, sponsors now pay to back a competition made of data, and it became an annual fixture on the surfing calendar.

Turn logged data into a competition

It gave the watch a reason to be worn every session

Data became the product experience, not a byproduct

Amateurs got a pro-level stage and told everyone

A recurring event compounds the data and the habit

Product data nobody reads can become the product: turn telemetry into a fair competition, let users compete on their own logged behavior, and the device starts selling itself every session.

The Virtual Pro won a D&AD 2024 Wood Pencil, four Spikes Asia bronzes and a Cannes Lions Creative Data bronze plus a shortlist, and returned annually with new sponsors.