On June 3, 2017, Alex Honnold became the first person to free solo Yosemite’s El Capitan. The weekend after his accomplishment, we put together a print and social campaign congratulating his unthinkable achievement.

Two years later, during the Academy Awards, we created a moment of awareness, conversation, and celebration of Alex’s “Free Solo” climb with a live social campaign. 

When Alex Honnold and Jimmy Chin hit the red carpet, we congratulated them both and acknowledged Alex’s first-ever custom-tailored The North Face Black Series tuxedo…and then started our climb. Knowing Alex ascended El Capitan in 3 hours 56 minutes and the average Oscar’s ceremony runs anywhere between 3 to 4 hours, we relived Alex’s Free Solo of Freerider in real-time with an animated gif on Twitter in correlation to the timing of the live broadcast.

Not knowing the outcome of the night, we prepared a top out post in the case that we win or lose…ultimately congratulating the whole Free Solo team on the night’s Oscar win for Best Documentary.