GoPro has taken a different route in a landscape saturated with polished ads and influencer fatigue. With the 2025 Grom Quest Challenge launched in April, the brand reinforced its position as a gear company and a global stage for youth talent. This year’s edition attracted over 4,000 submissions from athletes aged 10 to 16—all captured with GoPro equipment. Five standouts were selected, joining GoPro’s elite athlete team and, more strategically, serving as the next generation of authentic brand ambassadors.
The Mechanics Behind the Grom Quest
Launched in 2022, the Grom Quest Challenge is GoPro’s annual open call to under-17 athletes worldwide to submit their best action sports footage. In doing so, the brand is cultivating a scalable content ecosystem that’s more raw, real, and resonant than anything a production team could manufacture. But it’s not just about footage—it’s about future-proofing a brand by building loyalty early, weaving itself into the athletes’ journey before they even go pro. This year’s winning cohort included five young phenoms—Truly Adams, Weston Lukens, Carter Durlacher, Iyla Edwards, and Max Cristea—each a standout in their sport. Whether it was karting, mountain biking, skiing, or snowmobiling, these athletes didn’t just show skill—they showed the power of storytelling through GoPro’s lens.
These videos became marketing assets, shared across GoPro’s social platforms, and generated a ripple effect of visibility. According to GoPro’s April 2025 press releases via PR Newswire and Stock Titan, this approach enabled the company to gather high-impact, user-generated content without the traditional costs of scripted ad production. Every submission, by default, embedded product usage in its DNA, sidestepping the artificiality that often plagues sponsored content.
More importantly, this format flips the funnel. Instead of broadcasting to a general audience, GoPro’s marketing strategy pulls in niche, high-intent communities—from ski circuits to dirt biking forums—organically driven by the athletes’ networks.
Youth First, Loyalty for Life
What GoPro executes isn’t just a campaign—it’s lifecycle branding. By engaging Gen Z and even younger Gen Alpha athletes at a pivotal stage in their development, the brand inserts itself into their gear bags and personal narratives. These athletes aren’t just customers but creators, advocates, and future evangelists.
Carter Durlacher, for example, isn’t just a skier. He’s a story GoPro is helping tell—from the IFSA Jr National Tour to the Hall of Champions. That kind of alignment builds brand equity that money can’t buy. As these athletes age into more competitive, visible spaces, they carry GoPro with them—not as a product sponsor, but as a foundational partner.
This strategy also meets the moment: Gen Z increasingly values brands that do more than sell. They want partnerships, platforms, and purpose. GoPro, through the Grom Quest, offers all three.
The Social Flywheel and Brand as Platform
However, GoPro’s real power move lies in how it amplifies these stories. By pushing content across YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and its owned channels, the brand creates a social flywheel: user-generated content fuels audience engagement, which increases brand reach and draws more user-generated content. Each report by GoPro becomes a badge of honor for the athlete and a signal boost for the brand.
This approach shifts GoPro from a hardware company to a platform for exposure. The mentorship offered to winners deepens that positioning, creating a relationship network that extends beyond the camera. These young athletes don’t just get gear—they get guidance, visibility, and community. It’s a model that turns a brand into a launchpad.
Strategic Blueprint for Other Brands
GoPro’s blueprint is replicable—though not easily. What makes Grom Quest successful isn’t just the content collection. It’s the holistic integration of product, purpose, and prestige. From requiring GoPro cameras for submissions to limiting the winners to a coveted five, the company maintains a level of exclusivity that enhances the perceived value of winning.
Other brands, particularly in lifestyle, tech, or sports sectors, can take cues from this strategy. Think app-based challenges with product integration, mentorship from industry leaders, and localized qualifiers to drive grassroots participation. Even gamification or AR-enhanced storytelling can level up engagement. However, the impact won’t scale similarly without an authentic community and long-term vision.
More Than a Contest
The 2025 Grom Quest Challenge is not just about finding the next star. It’s about building a brand that moves at the speed of its community. GoPro has demonstrated that strategic marketing doesn’t need to feel like marketing when rooted in authentic content, real people, and meaningful stories.
As legacy brands scramble to reach younger audiences, GoPro is already there—recording, amplifying, and elevating the next generation of action sports talent, one front-flip or snowmobile jump at a time.
