The Background
Sense came to us wanting a brand new sporting mass participation event — something that could pull in cold audiences while also re-engaging people who'd previously taken on a challenge for the charity. They saw it as a real opportunity to diversify their product portfolio and open up a new income stream.
The Brief
The timing was perfect. A new partnership had handed Sense something genuinely rare: a closed-road charity cycling event at Box Hill — the world's most popular climb, a bucket-list destination for cyclists across London and Surrey, and part of the iconic 2012 Olympic road cycling route.
Our brief was to develop the audience, product, proposition, name and creative from scratch.
The Work
We started by getting under the skin of the right audiences. The primary target: casual but serious cyclists — people who'd done something like Ride London and were ready for their next challenge, solo or as a group. The secondary audience: riders comfortable pushing themselves harder, so the challenge needed enough flexibility to work across different levels.
It had to be tough enough to justify asking for sponsorship. But achievable enough that people would actually sign up.
We anchored everything around three core USPs: the closed roads (Sense's own supporter research flagged this as a major draw), the Box Hill destination itself, and a unique elevation challenge that doesn't exist anywhere else in the market.
From three concepts, the team chose Box Hill Super Climb — a brutal but brilliant challenge: repeat the 116m Zig Zag climb as many times as you can bear.
The name does everything you'd want it to. It tells you exactly what the challenge is, builds on Box Hill's iconic status, and gives Sense genuine ownership of the experience. The flexibility built into the format — whether you climb it twice or 69 times — creates natural competition, brilliant campaign messaging, and real longevity as participants come back year after year to beat their personal best.
We built a bold, dynamic creative campaign aimed squarely at serious cyclists, working closely with the Sense brand team to keep the charity's beneficiaries at the heart of everything, and making sure all design and assets were fully accessible.
The campaign is now live and recruiting for the September event. We can't wait to see it come to life — and see all those Kudos stacking up on the Box Hill Strava leaderboard.