The Fresh Cuts 48h Brand Challenge

13 Mar

48 hours. Two global brands. One epic challenge.

It's been a massive privilege to give back to Scotland's creative community over the past four months.

Collaborating with Screen Scotland and Developing Mountain Biking in Scotland (DMBinS), we've been working on Fresh Cuts, a paid mentorship programme designed to nurture the next wave of creative talent in Scotland's mountain bike industry.

The students come from all sorts of backgrounds—elite-level riders, vloggers, and design film students—and it's been incredible to see how each brings a unique perspective to the table.

So far, we've been immersing the students in workshops on creativity and production, how to get the most out of briefs, and training them to form lasting creative partnerships with clients, including pitching, producing, and delivering world-class work. Screen Scotland has also been sharing some excellent insights about the screen sector.

The goal of Fresh Cuts is to help foster a new generation of talented creatives to help meet the growing demand in the industry and to keep Scotland leading the way in mountain bike content for years to come..

And it’s not just about creating content; it’s about giving them the tools to tackle real brand challenges with compelling storytelling and strong ideas and how they can apply those skills in a commercial space, preparing them for lasting careers in an industry that's notoriously tough to get into.

Earlier this month, we ran a 48-hour branded content challenge with the help of Cannondale and FOCUS Bikes. For this “Brand Challenge”, the brands gave them real briefs, with real athlete talent to work with, and a very real deadline!

We wanted to flex the students’ creativity as they took on this challenge, but also a sample of real brand briefs too, with the goal of solving a problem, positioning a brand or product, and creating fun content. Split into two teams, they got a written brief and then got straight onto a video call with teams at Cannondale and FOCUS.

The task? To take the brief, come up with a story, shoot the content, edit it, and deliver it to the clients—all in just two days! So, with some guidance from Stu and Andy, our founder and Creative Director, the teams got right to it.

Team Cannondale (Aimi Kenyon, Murdo MacGillivary, Ross La Trobe and Sean Green)

The challenge from Cannondale was to create some short-form content around their Moterra SL e-MTB. Leading on from the campaign we created for the launch of the bike, the brief was to play on the ‘SL’ theme with content around the idea of ‘Sketchy Lines’, (which evolved into ‘Steezy Lines’), all while demonstrating the key aspects of the bike, a lightweight, playful and capable e-bike.

They recruited local shredder Ben Hood to put the Moterra SL through its paces down (and up) the trails. The crew delivered their video in 48 hours, and Cannondale was stoked with the results, crushing expectations.

“When Stu and the crew from Cut reached out regarding their ‘Fresh Cuts – 48hr Challenge,’ our interest was beyond piqued! As Cannondale has had a fantastic working relationship with Cut Media, we could not wait to collaborate and brief the team of hungry creators. As we knew, the quality of content would be both fun and engaging; we were confident going in, and after reviewing, we are stoked about what the students turned out!”

— Mike Marro, Senior Global Marketing Manager E-Mountain/Mountain, Cannondale

Team FOCUS Bikes (Ben Davies, Calum McBain, and Innes Graham)

Meanwhile, Focus wanted something different—a social campaign that captured the genuine joy of e-MTB biking. They envisioned a day-in-the-life video following two mates, Ben and Olly, as they lapped the trails from sunrise to sunset. The brief called for something that showcased the bikes' capabilities and, in fitting with the Focus brand's ‘ride together’ ethos, demonstrated the joy and fun of riding with friends, too.

Team Focus absolutely nailed it by integrating clever GFX (complete with hi-fives) to display ride metrics like distance and battery life throughout the day. When Focus saw the final cut, they were blown away by how the team had captured the essence of their brand.

Filmed in various locations across the Tweed Valley, Scotland, watching these teams hustle against the clock was something else!

“We were thrilled to support the ‘Fresh Cuts’ program by providing both our bikes and riders to help bring this creative project to life. We believe in empowering upcoming creators by giving them the tools and experiences they need to produce the best possible content.

The ‘Fresh Cuts’ project gave us a chance to showcase the performance of our e-MTBs, particularly in terms of distance and battery usage, while highlighting just how fun the riding experience can be.”

— Marcel Posa, Social Media Manager, FOCUS

“We’re passionate about the future of content creation and its creators in Scotland. We often find it challenging to recruit creatives who have the broad skill sets and commercial understanding we require to develop world-leading content for cycling and sports brands. We have absolutely loved giving back to Scotland’s creative community through Fresh Cuts over the past few months, sharing our knowledge and experience of what it takes to develop original and watchable content.”—Stu Thomson

This challenge was a unique opportunity for the students to prove they could deliver on real-world briefs, and we can’t thank FOCUS and Cannondale enough for their support. Watch the final films below.