GoPro: Be a Hero

GoPro’s success comes from a deep down understanding that it’s selling much more than just tiny, wearable sports
action video cameras. GoPro helps people capture, share, and celebrate with others the most meaningful
experiences in their lives.

An ever-growing army of GoPro customers are now strapping amazing little GoPro cameras to their
bodies or mounting them on anything from the front bumpers of race cars to the heels of skydiving boots
in order to capture the extreme moments of their lives and lifestyles. Then they can’t wait to share those
emotion packed GoPro moments with friends. In fact, the chances are good that you’ve seen many
GoPro-created videos on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram or even on TV.

Maybe it’s the video shot by the skier who sets off an avalanche in the Swiss Alps and escapes by
parachuting off a cliff—that amateur video received 2.6 million YouTube views in nine months. Or
maybe you saw the one where a seagull picks up a tourist’s camera and takes off with it, capturing a
bird’s-eye view of a castle in Cannes, France (3 million views in seven months). Or what about the video
of the mountain biker in Africa who is ambushed by a full-grown gazelle (more than 13 million views in
four months)? One video in which a tech challenged Irishman used his son’s GoPro to capture his entire
Las Vegas vacation with the camera mistakenly pointed at himself instead of the sights snared 6.9 million
views in only six days.

GoPro’s avid customers have become evangelists for the brand. GoPro holds a 47.5 percent share of the
action camera market. Its sales soared to more than $1.4 billion last year, a fivefold increase in only four
years.

What makes GoPro so successful? Part of the formula is the physical product itself: GoPro cameras are
marvels of technology, especially given their affordable starting price of less than $200 for an entry-level
model. A GoPro HD video camera looks like little more than a small gray box. But the lightweight,
wearable or mountable GoPro is extremely versatile, and it packs amazing power for capturing stunning
HD-quality video. A removable housing makes GoPro cameras waterproof to depths of 130 feet. And
GoPro cameras are drop-proof from 3,000 feet (so claims one skydiver).

But GoPro knows that it sells much more than just a small metal box that takes action videos. GoPro
users—whether extreme sports enthusiasts or just everyday video buffs—don’t just want to take videos.
More than that, they want to tell the stories and share the emotions and moments in their lives. “Enabling
you to share your life through incredible photos and video is what we do,” says GoPro. We “help people
capture and share their lives’ most meaningful experiences with others—to celebrate them together.”

When people view a stunning GoPro video clip—like the one of New Zealand’s Jed Mildon landing the
first-ever BMX triple backflip captured by his helmet camera—to some degree, they experience what the
subject experiences. They feel the passion and adrenaline. And when that happens, GoPro creates an
emotional connection between the GoPro storyteller and the audience.

Thus, making good cameras is only the start of GoPro’s success. GoPro founder Nick Woodman, himself
an extreme sports junkie, talks about helping customers through four essential steps in their storytelling
and emotion-sharing journeys: capture, creation broadcast, and recognition. Capture is what the cameras
do—shooting pictures and videos. Creation is the editing and production process that turns raw footage
into compelling videos. Broadcast involves distributing the video content to an audience. Recognition is
the payoff for the content creator. Recognition might come in the form of YouTube views or Likes and
Shares on Facebook. More probably, it’s the enthusiastic oohs and ahhs that their videos evoke from
friends and family. The company’s slogan sums up what it’s really selling: “GoPro: Be a HERO.”

Initially, GoPro focused primarily on the capture step of the customer storytelling experience. It offers a
seemingly endless supply of rigs, mounts, harnesses, straps, and other accessories that make GoPro
cameras wearable or mountable just about anywhere. Users can strap the little cameras to their wrists or
mount them on helmets. They can attach them to the tip of a snow ski, the bottom of a skateboard, or the
underside of an RC helicopter. In fact, GoPro will soon sell drones—the “ultimate accessory for your
GoPro camera”—that will let GoPro enthusiasts take breathtaking videos from on high. The handy little
GoPro lets even the rankest video amateur capture some pretty incredible footage.

But to fuel continuing growth, GoPro has broadened its offer to address the full range of customer needs
and motivations— not just capture but also creation, broadcast, and recognition. For example, on the
creation side, GoPro offers free GoPro Studio software that makes it easier for users to create
professional-quality videos from their GoPro content. With the GoPro App, users can “Control. View.
Share.”—using their phones, tablets, or Apple Watches to control their GoPros remotely, trim and edit
images, and share their favorites wirelessly with friends by text or post or on the GoPro Channel, which is
already distributed though social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,
Vimeo, Pinterest, and GoPro.com/Channels. As for recognition, GoPro now airs TV commercials created
from the best videos submitted by customers at its website. GoPro’s future lies in enabling and integrating
the full user experience, from capturing video to sharing stories and life’s emotions with others.

GoPro’s rich understanding of what product it’s really selling is serving the company well. Its
enthusiastic customers are among the most loyal and engaged of any brand. For example, GoPro’s
Facebook fan base is more than 9.2 million and growing fast. To put that in perspective, much larger
Canon USA has only 1.1 million Facebook followers. Beyond uploading nearly half a million videos a
year, GoPro fans interact heavily across a broad range of social media. For example, the GoPro hashtag is
used more than 45,000 times daily across major social networks. “I think we have the most socially
engaged online audience of any consumer brand in the world,” claims Woodman.

All that customer engagement and enthusiasm have made GoPro the world’s fastest-growing camera
company. Today GoPro cameras are available in more than 40,000 stores in more than 100 countries,
from small sports-enthusiast shops to REI, Best Buy, and Amazon.com. GoPro’s remarkable little
cameras have also spread beyond amateurs. They have become standard equipment for many professional
filmmakers—whether it’s the Discovery Channel or a news show team filming rescues, wildlife, and
storms or the production crews of hit reality-TV shows such as Deadliest Catch taking pictures of
underwater crab pots or the sides of ships in heavy seas. When stuntman Felix Baumgartner made his
breathtaking 128,000-foot jump from the edge of space, he was wearing five GoPros. The use of GoPro
equipment by professionals lends credibility that fuels even greater consumer demand.

The moral of this story: GoPro knows that it doesn’t just sell cameras. More than that, it enables
customers to share important moments and emotions. Says Woodman: “We spent a lot of time recently
thinking about, What are we really doing here? We know that our cameras are arguably the most socially
networked consumer devices of our time, so it’s clear we’re not just building hardware.” The company
sums it up this way: “Dream it. Do it. Capture it with your GoPro. Capture and share your world.”