Every few months someone in the surf industry asks the same question: “How do we grow surfing?” The answers usually revolve around social media strategy, influencer marketing, YouTube analytics, paid advertising, or the latest content campaign.
What rarely gets mentioned is the place that built surfing long before any of those things existed—the local surf shop.
The surf shop has never just been a retail store. It’s where kids bought their first bar of wax. It’s where they stared at boards they couldn’t afford yet. It’s where they watched surf movies, listened to stories, got advice, and eventually became lifelong surfers. For decades, surf shops were the industry’s original social network.
In late July / early August, Jamie O’Brien, Pipe Masters champion, YouTube Gold Play Button recipient, and one of surfing’s most recognizable personalities, hit the road with the Fun Day Surf team for a surf shop tour from San Diego to Los Angeles. The itinerary wasn’t built around content creation. It was built around people.
Over seven days the team visited HSS, Killer Dana, Hansen Surfboards, Surf Ride, ET Surf, Spyder Surf, Revolution Ventura, Rincon Designs, Drill Surf, Val Surf, and HSS once again to wrap things up. There were autograph sessions, giveaways, surf demos, barbecues, coffee mornings, and exclusive premieres of the team’s latest film before it was released online.
The videos from the tour will eventually disappear into the endless scroll of social media. The memories made inside those surf shops won’t.
None of this is new for Jamie O’Brien.
Long before YouTube subscribers and brand-owned media channels became the norm, Jamie was traveling the country on Body Glove’s legendary 1NVASION tours in 2012 and 2013. Those tours packed surf shops across America with young surfers waiting for a chance to meet the athletes they watched in magazines and videos. The East Coast run even appeared on Who is JOB? Season 3 alongside Cheyne Magnusson, Poopies, Kalani Chapman, and the rest of the crew. Jamie later returned for Body Glove’s final Florida tour, making four shop stops a day from Jacksonville Beach to Fort Lauderdale with the company’s sales reps and the greatest human ever – Greg Browning.
Somewhere along the way, Jamie figured something out.
Surf shops aren’t important because they sell your product.
They’re important because they build your customer.
That’s a distinction the surf industry sometimes forgets.
Every brand wants engagement. Every marketing department wants impressions. Every athlete wants views. But none of those metrics explain why a twelve-year-old walks into a surf shop wearing their favorite surfer’s T-shirt and walks out believing they belong in surfing.
That happens because someone took the time to show up.
Anyone who has spent time on a surf shop tour knows the feeling. You might be exhausted after hours on the road, stuck in traffic, running behind schedule, and wondering if anyone will even show up. Then you pull into the parking lot and see a handful of groms waiting outside.
Everything changes.
For those kids, the event isn’t another stop on a marketing calendar. It’s the biggest thing happening all summer. A handshake. A sticker. A signed poster. Five minutes with someone they admire. Those moments create stories they’ll tell for years.
You can’t measure that with analytics.
Jamie O’Brien has built one of the most durable careers in modern surfing because he understood early that being relevant isn’t just about surfing incredible waves. It’s about connecting with people. His success today is the result of elite talent mixed with personality, authenticity, and a willingness to invest in surfing’s community. At 43, he’s still one of the most recognizable faces in the sport—not because an algorithm decided so, but because surfers continue choosing to pay attention.
Now he’s passing that lesson on.
As a father and a brand owner, Jamie isn’t just promoting Fun Day Surf. He’s showing the younger members of the team that supporting surf shops isn’t an obligation. It’s an investment in the very places that make careers like theirs possible.
That’s a lesson more brands should be paying attention to.
The surf industry has become obsessed with digital marketing because it’s scalable, inexpensive, and easy to measure. But somewhere along the way many companies stopped measuring what actually matters. Relationships don’t show up on spreadsheets. Loyalty doesn’t fit inside a monthly analytics report. Community can’t be boosted with ad dollars.
It has to be earned.
The brands that will still matter ten years from now won’t necessarily be the ones with the biggest social media following. They’ll be the ones that continue showing up at local contests, sponsoring surf clubs, premiering films inside surf shops, shaking hands, signing posters, answering questions, and remembering that the retailer isn’t simply another account number.
Surf shops are still where surfing begins.
Not on Instagram.
Not on YouTube.
Not in an online shopping cart.
On a Saturday morning, inside a local surf shop, where a kid meets someone who inspires them and walks out believing they’re part of something bigger than themselves.
That’s not old-school marketing.
That’s surfing.
You can view more of Building The Revolution’s informative surf industry related articles by visiting: https://buildingtherevolution.com/
We, at Board Retailers Association, love what Fun Day Surf is pushing. They know how important that Brick and Mortar Shops are to the culture and overall life of Surfing. We are very pleased to welcome Jaime, Tom, and the other incredible people behind Fun Day Surf to Board Retailers Association as Supporting Event Partners for Surf Expo and Table Sponsors for next week’s BRA No Agenda Dinner, which happens the evening before Surf Expo. We only have two seats available as of this posting so if you are a BRA Retail Member and will be around the evening before Surf Expo and have interest in attending, please text Doug Works (BRA Executive Director) at 760-500-5716 ASAP.
If you are not yet a BRA Retail Member, you can easily opt in to either Regular (no cost) or Distinguished ($100/yr.) Membership via this super simple join form