Last night, at the inaugural star-studded Virgin Active Sport Industry Awards 2011 in Johannesburg, Hi-Tec won ‘Best Use of Digital Communications in Sport’ for their creative ‘Liquid Mountaineering’ viral video. It’s a documentary-type film that features three guys who succeed in running on water thanks to Hi-Tec’s ion mask™ technology, which gives their footwear water-repellent properties.
The video is promoted as the development of a new sport, Liquid Mountaineering, which attempts to achieve what man has tried to do for centuries: walk on water. Actually, the guys featured run on water. In the video description they say, “By accident we found out that with the right water-repellent equipment you can run across bodies of water, just like a stone skimming the surface.”
In the opening scene the three men introduce this new sport by saying,
Sebastian van der Wyf: “A few people have tried it and nobody has ever managed to get close to what we got like today”.
Miguel Delfortrie: “You have to believe you can do these things. It’s not like impossible.”
Ulf Gartner: “There’s been a few people who have been like sort of following us. It’s me, my boots and I… we’re gonna make it.”
Van der Wyf: “I definitely think it is going to be the next big thing”.
Since its release in May 2010, the Liquid Mountaineering video has featured on thousands of blogs and has had almost nine million views on YouTube to date. This entertaining video has also been flighted on television channels in a dozen countries.
‘We are delighted to win this award, which demonstrates our ability and desire to use new media as a medium for reaching and interacting with our customers,” says Ian Little, Marketing Manager for Hi-Tec South Africa.
Watch the video here (as posted on www.AR.co.za in May 2010) or find it on YouTube by typing in ‘Liquid Mountaineering’.