SOCIAL

White River Marine Group (WRMG) is the boat/ATV manufacturing and distribution company of Bass Pro Shops. One (large) responsibility of the creative team I led was social media content strategy and creation. We supported eight boat brands, an ATV brand and a national dealership brand—10 brands total. For this example, I decided to only highlight organic Instagram content, but there's obviously much more elsewhere.

Here's a glimpse into what that looked like the last few years.

2020 WRMG
SOCIAL HIGHLIGHTS

What a year. Social started strong for our team at White River Marine Group. We were on-site providing live social media coverage for Mako Boats at the Miami International Boat Show, and for Ranger, Nitro and Triton Boats at the Bassmaster Classic in Birmingham. Next thing you know, we were working from home adjusting and deploying a new social strategy to reflect a very different world. Eventually, tournaments came back a bit, and we were able to launch a few campaigns and even achieved a major milestone with one of our brands.

In February, we provided live coverage from the Miami International Boat Show for Mako Boats. Click the image above to watch the Instagram Story Highlight. >>>

In early March, we were in Birmingham, Alabama, covering the Bassmaster Classic. Click the image above to watch the Instagram Story Highlight. >>>

Once the pandemic hit, we adjusted our strategy and aligned messaging across brands to encourage followers to safely seek refuge in the outdoors. >>>

During the shutdown, we created content to help pass the time. (Click the image above.) And since many dealerships were closed, we encouraged shopping from home. >>>

Even a global pandemic couldn't stop competitive bass fishing. In addition to covering tournaments, we also set up a few pro angler takeovers. >>>

In July, record social engagement pushed Ranger Boats over 100,000 Instagram followers—making it the most popular bass boat brand on social.

2019 WRMG
SOCIAL HIGHLIGHTS

2019 social kicked off with the launch of Major League Fishing’s Bass Pro Tour—where one of our anglers took home top honors by seasons-end. We then moved into sponsoring the Ladies Midwest Meetup ice fishing event. The 2019 Bassmaster Classic turned out to be huge for us. Not only did one of our pro anglers take home the trophy, we also launched a new ATV brand there—Tracker Off Road. Throughout the year, on-site social coverage of various company-sponsored fishing tournaments and boat shows continued. Throw in some boat-friendly recipe videos, new influencer agreements and fun sweepstakes, and you end up with a very successful year for social.

The Bass Pro Tour event kicked off 2019 with the first cast by Bass Pro Shops founder, Johnny Morris. By season’s end, Nitro Pro, Edwin Evers, had cleaned house. >>>

Bass Pro/Cabela's Boating Centers sponsored the Ladies Midwest Meetup ice fishing and lake cleanup event in February. Click the image to watch the highlights. >>>

Nitro Pro, Ott DeFoe, won the Bassmaster Classic—plus, we launched Tracker Off Road there. Click the image above to watch a fun video from Dude Perfect. >>>

A more unique event we covered was the US Open Bowfishing Championship. The only way to do it justice is to hop onboard with a team while they fish overnight. >>>

For our recreational brands, boat-friendly recipe videos were a great way to provide engaging content. Click the image above to see how they turned out. >>>

Covering the Mako Funament in Islamorada is always fun. But it’s even better when the campaign wins Best in Show from the AAF! Click the image above to see it. >>>

We launched a partnership with Notherner, Fishhook Terry, to gain market share in the competitive North. Click the image above to watch his new boat review. >>>

Again, it's tough work, but someone has to cover the Ft. Lauderdale Boat Show for our brands. Click the image above to watch the IG Story Highlight. >>>

2018 WRMG
SOCIAL HIGHLIGHTS

The creative team at WRMG got into a nice groove with social in 2018. We were fully-staffed, busy—but not crazy, and we’d just recently added Instagram to the mix of channels we were developing content for. A few fruits of our labor are highlighted below—including a lake cleanup campaign, some fun videos and animations, the launch of a blog and some eye candy for good measure.

For Lakes Appreciation Month, we partnered with multiple brands and ambassadors on the #BagTheTrash campaign. Click the image above to watch the launch video. >>>

To promote the pop-up changing rooms on our pontoon boats, Pontoon Dad came to the rescue! Click the image above to watch the video. >>>

Sight, sound and motion—all elements to help maximize social performance. Here are a few animations we created to help maintain our 70% video content goal. >>>

An upholstery cleaning instructional video... Snoozefest City, right? Not so fast. Click the image above to see how we brought some fun to an otherwise dull topic. >>>

To maximize traffic to the new Boating Center site, we created a blog to house content on a slew of topics. Click the image above to check it out. >>>

Now for the eye candy. Having an amazing asset library made for especially attractive Instagram content. >>>

If you look closely, you might see me hanging on for dear life in the top-right image—being chased by a helicopter while running 75-mph in waist deep water. Good times.

VISTA OUTDOOR LAUNCH

Before returning to Bass Pro Shops for my second tour, I created the content to launch Vista Outdoor's social channels after ATK acquired Bushnell Outdoor Products and created Vista Outdoor. We needed a singular graphic that would somehow represent the massive collection of outdoor accessory brands in their portfolio. Here's how it turned out.