Havaianas becomes global sponsor of World Surf League

By

Robin Driver

Published
Dec 19, 2019

Iconic Brazilian flip-flop brand Havaianas has entered into a two-year global sponsorship deal with the World Surf League (WSL), with plans to activate at six of the organization’s official stages over the next year.

 
Havaianas will be present at four different locations for the 2020 WSL World Championship’s initial stage: Gold Coast, Australia; Saquarema, Brazil; Surf Ranch in Lemoore, California; and Peniche, Portugal.
 
The brand will also be on hand at the WSL Challenger Series stage in Galicia, Spain, as well as at the New York Longboard Classic.

To celebrate the deal, Havaianas has already shown up at the WSL Zone in São Paulo, Brazil, an event organized on December 14 and 15 to broadcast WSL’s 2019 finals, which took place at the famous Pipeline in Hawaii.
 
Through its new partnership with WSL, Havaianas is hoping to boost its international visibility, while WSL intends to strengthen its relationship with the brand in Brazil.
 
“We have always had a natural and genuine relationship with surfers all over the world, and surf culture is very present in the lifestyle our brand celebrates,” said Fernanda Romano, CMO of Havaianas parent company Grupo Alpargatas, in a release. “We see the Havaianas and WSL platform as a long-term partnership in which we will create incredible experiences for lovers of this unique lifestyle.”
 
The new deal comes on the heels of Havaianas’ announcement of its sponsorship of Tatiana Weston-Webb, the first Brazilian surfer to qualify for the WSL Championship Tour for Tokyo 2020.
 
The São Paulo-based company has also collaborated with WSL in the past, having sponsored the Brazilian stage of the World Championship Tour in Saquarema in June 2019, a partnership that Havaianas celebrated by hosting the world’s first underwater store at Itaúna beach.
 
But the brand’s relationship with surf culture goes back even further. It was surfers who, in 1994, turned Havaianas soles upside-down to wear them as one solid color, a stylistic choice now reflected by a large part of the brand’s product portfolio.
 
Havaianas now releases more than 400 new models a year, while its products are currently available in more than 100 countries around the world.