Born in Western Australia, Sea to Summit launched in 1986 when Roland Tyson started making outdoor gear to meet the multifaceted needs of outdoor enthusiasts. The brand has become synonymous with innovative, lightweight adventure gear to support expeditions from sea to summit. 

The well-known manufacturer in small, innovative camp accessories set sites on releasing its most ambitious product category to date: lightweight tents. Sea to Summit partnered with Purple Orange to communicate the product’s value proposition, leverage consumer discovery to boost sales, and garner industry acclaim while instilling consumer trust in the new category.

The brand’s launch into lightweight tents was ambitious, setting out to design the best tent possible. The project was a multi-million dollar investment and took three years of research and design. After many iterations, the brand launched two lightweight tent models in 2021: the Telos and Alto. 

The value proposition included interwoven, small design stories: from tent stakes, to pole design, to overall manufacturing, and user experience. Without trade shows, these details would be challenging to delineate, and our team strategized a virtual launch to highlight the features and lay the groundwork for sales.

• Effectively communicate the value proposition of the Telos TR2™
• Drive top of funnel sales through search engine optimization
• Garner consumer and wholesale trust through industry awards

With limited trade shows and samples, our strategy centered on a virtual webinar to deliver an engaging, informative overview of the brand’s 40-year history and the journey to an ambitious tent launch.

Webinar guests included Founder and CEO Roland Tyson and the Australian design team. Members could speak directly with editors, showcase the product, communicate key design features, and engage in Q&A sessions.

The webinar successfully hosted over 169 editors from vertical encompassing media outlets, including Men’s Journal, Popular Mechanics, Clever Hiker, The Strategist, Wirecutter, The Manual, and more. 

Early editor communication allowed us to get ahead of the media cycle, deliver on early award entries, and address any confusion in communications.

As the brand was still relatively unknown in the tent category, another challenge was getting ahead of the consumer buying cycle.

Purple Orange leveraged keyword research to understand consumer purchase decisions and develop a media strategy to drive sales across product discovery funnels. 

After analyzing over 1,000 keywords, we developed a prioritized list of top-tier media outlets spanning key consumer cohorts. Next, we leveraged different consumer audiences to drive affiliate sales with outlets spanning hunting and fishing verticals to mainstream backpacking channels. 

Four months after the tents launched, 34% of the brand’s annual affiliate sales had come from tent traffic referrals from integral SEO outlets.