Context

Relentless Energy was a challenger brand inside Coca-Cola, built from the ground up to compete against category leaders. The brand needed to scale quickly across Europe while building authentic cultural credibility, not just paid awareness. Traditional advertising alone wasn’t enough to differentiate in action sports and music communities.

Approach

I led the creation of Short Stories, a short-form content platform designed to turn brand values into culture, not campaigns. We launched an open film competition inviting amateur and professional filmmakers to interpret Relentless’ core virtue, No Half Measures, through real stories from skate, surf, snow, BMX, and underground music scenes. The platform combined commissioning original films, curating emerging creative talent, and distributing content through owned channels and endemic media. By shifting budget from traditional ads to creator-led storytelling, we built a repeatable content engine that felt native to the communities Relentless wanted to earn.

Results

Short Stories generated more than 3 million organic views online and produced standout films including Dark Side of the Lens, which won Surfer Magazine Best Global Short. The platform helped fuel rapid brand growth, contributing to Relentless doubling in size in under two years, reaching number two volume share at 10 percent, with stronger equity scores than Red Bull in key markets.

Learnings

Challenger brands scale faster when they invest in platforms that create culture with communities, not just content for them.

Agency Partner Ross Cairns, Resistance Partners