03 · CLIF / The most important ingredient is you
Winning the work starts long before the pitch.
CLIENT CLIF · NEW BUSINESS · USA · DAVID
01 THE PROBLEM
A competitive pitch, a brand we had to learn fast, and no long runway to learn it on.
Product credentials alone wouldn’t give CLIF a distinctive place in people’s lives. We had to find where what made CLIF different met what actually mattered to the people choosing it.
02 THE SHIFT
Instead of treating strategy, creative and client management as separate stages, we built the thinking together, and landed on an insight that gave the stage to both sides of the equation: the product, and the person using it.
The most important ingredient is you.
03 THE PROOF
Tissue sessions, working calls, constant iteration. By pitch day, we weren’t presenting an idea we hoped would work. We were presenting one we had already pressure-tested together. The business was won, and the pitch became a partnership.
The film
The 15-second launch spot: Frances Tiafoe, “the more good you put in, the more great you get out.”
The launch
A platform built to live on social.
The campaign launched in May 2024 in the US and Canada, and social carried it: CLIF athletes and creators posting the platform in their own voice, each one naming their most important ingredient.
@clifbar · May 13, 2024
Elena Hight: “As the most important ingredient, YOU turn your passions into action.”
@clifbar · May 22, 2024
Frances Tiafoe takes the Reflex Challenge: the hero athlete, in pure social format.
Creator activation · @thatmountainlife
“Sometimes the main ingredient required is the send.” The platform, carried by creators. #mostimportantingredient
One insight — The consumer truth that became a whole brand platform.
Built together — Strategy, creative and leadership aligned before the room, not in it.
Business won — The pitch became the beginning of a partnership.
What this case taught me
Great work rarely starts with a presentation. It starts with clarity about the right problem.
When strategy, creative and client leadership connect early, confidence isn’t something you manufacture in the room. It’s something you bring into it.
Let's build yours.
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