World Surf Champion Relaunches Iconic Instinct Brand to Empower Underprivileged Students

Instinct ad

Relaunching Instinct in my hometown and incorporating revenue from every sale to empower underprivileged students is a dream come true. Business can solve big social problems, but if I can just help with one small problem, the life trajectory of a student, then my mission will be fulfilled

LOS ANGELES (PRWEB)
April 04, 2023

Leadership speaker, best-selling author and world champion surfer, Shaun Tomson, and his apparel designer wife Carla, will relaunch his iconic surf clothing brand, Instinct, in his native South Africa to empower underprivileged students.

Instinct launches in South Africa with Oh Two Clothing, a homegrown manufacturer, cutting, sewing, printing and producing apparel in Tomson’s hometown of Durban. Home grown and Home sewn is the ethos.

Tomson is in the middle of a world speaking tour following the launch of his #1 Amazon best-selling book The Surfer and the Sage: A Guide to Survive and Ride Life’s Waves (Familius Publishing), on NBC’s national Today Show.

The tour, which included New York City, then continued to London, California, Florida, Australia, and Hilton Head, highlighted the book’s Code Method, a transformational self-development program to activate purpose to improve wellbeing, motivation, and performance.

Over the last three years, Tomson has spoken to over 250, 000 people at in-person and virtual speaking engagements.

“Read the headlines and there are many stories of business gone bad – crypto currency scandals, executives at banks enriching themselves at the expense of their depositors and shareholders – the list goes on and on. Every day a new scandal as the decision makers move away from their core values in search of more value for themselves.

However, there are many bright spots in the darkness – corporations and people doing the right thing and asking nothing in return.

I personally experienced an incredibly warm gesture from Foschini, one of South Africa’s top apparel retail groups,” says Tomson.

In 1979, Tomson founded Instinct in Durban in partnership with a local family. He wanted to come up with a name that represented the essence of his surfing experience.

He thought about the favorite part of the surfing experience – the moments when he had experienced true stoke and fulfillment, and it was the tube ride. Those moments when you are enveloped by a hypnotically spinning tunnel of water, balanced on the edge between exhilaration and disaster. Deep inside the tube, in a state of perfect flow, aligning maneuvers to his own inner rhythm, he felt that his mind state was instinct – so that’s what he called the brand – “Instinct.” And the subline is “the inner rhythm.”

The brand grew quickly and eventually was sold in 13 countries employing people across the globe. It featured a red-hot surf team and sponsored great surfers including Mike Burness, Dave Parmenter and Greg Anderson. It also sponsored the erudite Barton Lynch to his World Title in 1988, and radical Tom Carroll to his two titles in 1984 and 1985.

Many people still remember the groundbreaking ad campaign created by ad genius Rod Dyer with copy by David Lees. “Surfing is life…The rest is details.”

Tomson sold the brand to his original partners when he retired from competitive surfing in 1990. The business went through some ups and downs but he and his wife eventually re-acquired the intellectual property rights except in South Africa. The rights had been sold many years before to Foschini.

Foschini happily gave the brand back to Tomson to thank him for his work empowering students across the world through activating purpose and hope. All they asked was a contribution in perpetuity from every product sale to the 9 Miles Project in Cape Town – an NGO focused on empowering underprivileged youth through surfing.

“Relaunching Instinct in my hometown where I started it and incorporating revenue from every sale to empower underprivileged students is a dream come true. Business can solve big social problems, but if I can just help with one small problem, the life trajectory of a student, then my mission will be fulfilled. I’m excited to be partnering with Oh Two Clothing and the 9 Miles Project to improve the lives of kids through the life lessons of surfing. Over the last 17 years I have dedicated my life to helping uplift organizations, schools and universities through inspirational programs and I’m excited to be incorporating Instinct into my program of self-empowerment,” says Tomson.

“This is such an awesome initiative, and we are super stoked and incredibly grateful to Shaun and his wife for choosing us. What an incredible brand and what a great initiative by a great couple! We love the way you and your family are always doing so much good and changing the world for the better. Thank you for making us part of that. We are so so excited for this!,” says Sher’Neil Savel, Founder, 9 Miles Project.

“The entire team at Oh Two is stoked to partner up with Shaun and Carla to re-launch one of South Africa’s most iconic home-grown and heritage brands and we will be making the product in our factory in South Africa – made by South African hands for South Africans – homegrown and home-sewn. We have created a unique collection of surfwear with inspiration from the past, present and future and we are really excited to support Shaun’s worldwide mission of youth transformation by contributing a portion of every sale to the 9Miles Project to empower underprivileged youth through surfing,” says Simon de Robillard, Director, Oh Two Clothing.

About Oh Two Clothing

From humble beginnings in the small back room of a Durban home over twenty years ago, Oh Two Clothing has evolved into one of South Africa’s leading manufacturers for the retail and promotional clothing industry. Having started off with one pattern maker and six machinists, our family-owned and managed business has grown into a thriving company with in-house Design, CMT and Screen Printing capability.

The fully vertical operation enables the manufacturing process from start to finish, giving absolute control of both quality and price. With an infrastructure built around a quick response production model, speed and flexibility are the key differentiators that sets the company apart from competitors.

About 9 Miles Project

9Miles Project is a registered non-profit organization that was founded in Cape Town in 2013. The project works with youth in coastal informal settlements and provides mentorship and support to the at-risk youth in the areas of Cape Town, Elands Bay, and St Francis Bay. With Headquarters at Strandfontein Pavilion, Cape Town, the project is a haven and refuge for youth who have very few positive role models in their lives.

Motivated by his love for surfing and the pivotal role that the discipline of this activity played in his life, Nigel Savel, along with his wife Sher’Neil, started the project with the vision of improving their crime and drug-scourged community. Nigel recognized that the children growing up in the surrounding informal settlements were living with gangsters and drug dealers as role models and that there were very few organized activities or programmes to motivate and mold young impressionable minds. Surfing was used as a catalyst to entice students to the project and to teach them discipline, determination and life skills.

About Shaun Tomson

Shaun Tomson is a leadership speaker who uplifts, inspires and re-connects individuals, teams and families to their true purpose to live a better and more meaningful life.

As a World Surfing Champion, he has been described as one of the 10 greatest and most influential surfers of all time. Following his career as a professional athlete, he went on to become a successful entrepreneur, leadership speaker, best-selling author, award winning filmmaker, philanthropist, and environmentalist.