Our Ripples

01 The Brand

Our Ripples is a small batch, ethically made surf and swimwear label rooted in Orange and Los Angeles counties, and it has grown almost entirely through Instagram and word of mouth. The brand is community designed and sold directly to its customers, and it has never spent on paid media. That history gives it something the large swimwear labels cannot manufacture, an authentic local identity that a partner can build on from the very first day.

02 The Objective

The objective is to grow sales beyond the Orange County and Los Angeles base without diluting the surf community authenticity that sets the brand apart. Partnerships here are treated strictly as a way to grow sales, so every idea has to earn its place by bringing in new and qualified buyers.

03 The Opening

Southern California has one of the most active surf scenes in the country, with a steady calendar of film screenings and grassroots contests that the brand already belongs to. Its customers overlap closely with the audience for independent surf film and for the fast rising wave of women’s surf content, which makes that world a natural place to grow outward. National direct to consumer labels carry far more reach, though their scale leaves them without the local roots Our Ripples was built on, and that community trust is its single hardest advantage for a competitor to copy.

04 The Strategy

The plan rests on two connected partnerships, neither of them built around a live event.

• Surf film and festival. Provide wardrobe and product placement for an independent surf documentary or short, and take part in a community festival such as the Save The Waves Film Festival, which is open for 2026 submissions. Gifting suits to the featured surfers and filmmakers earns the brand visibility inside a curated and like minded audience.
• Local creators. Give one or two Orange County or Los Angeles surf and lifestyle creators free product and an affiliate code in exchange for recurring content. The aim is a lasting relationship that produces content over time and ties directly to sales.

05 Why Now

Women’s surf storytelling is drawing real investment right now, with Red Bull’s film Now Days premiering in Hollywood alongside world champions and rising stars. Brands have started to treat creators as an ongoing content pipeline, and audiences increasingly reward work that feels raw and story driven. Our Ripples was built Instagram first and in step with its community, so it already fits the direction the industry is moving.

06 Rollout and Measurement

The rollout starts small, gifting wardrobe to a few surfers or filmmakers at the festival and documenting it on Instagram. That first step costs very little and works as a live test of whether festival adjacent audiences respond, and whatever performs there shapes a small creator ambassador program with tracked affiliate codes. Because the plan spends product where a normal campaign would spend cash, the financial risk stays low throughout.

Success would show up in a few clear places. The clearest is engagement and follower growth from outside Orange County and Los Angeles, which is the real measure of whether the brand is reaching new ground. Affiliate usage and site traffic tied to those posts would then show whether that attention is converting, and repeat purchases from the customers it brings in would show whether the conversion holds.