Branded Content Strategy, Creative Direction & Production
Bike fanatic and Cervélo Cycles employee Joe Finkleman hit me up to him film commercials for the company to air at the 2008 Tour de France, and at the last minute were invited to film the company’s founders Gerard Vroomen and Phil White at the Tour, where as luck would have it Carlos Sastre won on a Cervélo. Sastre joined Cervélo’s fledgling TestTeam for the following year, so Joe and I quickly pitched a concept for a behind-the-scenes branded content series about the team called BEYOND THE PELOTON (“BTP” as it came to be called affectionately by fans). Informed by early Nike branded content my New York creative partner Malcolm Hearn edited for RadicalMedia, it was part of a bigger transmedia play that included Cervélo’s refreshingly authentic documentary-style Tour de France commercials, product development mini-docs, videos for team co-sponsors like Rotor and Garmin, social media content, and even exclusive videos for Cervélo’s Tour de France VIP fan access packages.
Cervélo co-founder Gerard Vroomen, who embraced transparency in a sport plagued by deceit and believed behind-the-scenes R&D about the fastest bikes in the world was more compelling than ad agency hype (or “marketing mush” as he calls it), jumped at the chance to show his company and team make history through documentary film technique.
As Vroomen puts it: “Booker (together with Joe Finkleman) pitched us the idea for a documentary series about our newly-founded Cervélo TestTeam. As we wanted to create the most transparent cycling team possible (something lacking in this sport in general) and were looking for original ways to tell our story, it was the perfect idea.”
And so began three wild years on the road with the Cervélo TestTeam (which merged into Team Garmin Cervélo in 2011), as BTP quickly built a cult following in 2009 with underdog stories like Thor Hushovd’s surprising Green Jersey win at the Tour de France and Heinrich Haussler’s heartbreaking loss to Mark Cavendish by mere centimeters at Milan San Remo. BTP and its associated transmedia content helped Cervélo enjoy exponential growth in a few short years and become the most coveted pro-cycling bike brand at the time – all while keeping Cervélo’s cutting-edge product development and inspirational startup story front and center.
“In all modesty,” Vroomen continues, “Booker and the rest of the crew of BEYOND THE PELOTON made a small piece of history. […] Nowadays, many teams have documentary series, but the brilliance of the original has never been matched. The main reason is that Booker and Joe always maintained creative independence, resulting in truly interesting stories rather than slick (and often-boring) marketing mush. Of course they understood the needs of the team too, but the integrity of the story was paramount for them and frankly, also for us.”
Around that same time, I wrote, co-produced, directed and edited a Cadbury-sponsored doc about bike activism in Ghana called WHEELS OF CHANGE, which aired in Canada on CTV – and followed up by directing brand docs about the effects of Cadbury’s Fairtrade initiative on the lives of Ghanaian cocoa farmers.
BTP was canceled after Cervélo was acquired by conglomerate Pon and new management brought in to replace Vroomen’s team. Fans took to Twitter and the Cervélo blog to voice their displeasure, many crediting the series with them falling in love with cycling and their decision to buy a $10k Cervélo. Vroomen sums up the show’s appeal: “The documentary series was the first of its kind, showed the raw beauty of the sport (and its ugliness), was honest and unpolished and most importantly, fans and riders loved it.” It’s also not lost on fans that BTP paved the way for Netflix’s TOUR DE FRANCE: UNCHAINED series, with the two sharing filmmaking techniques – and even a few characters.
During that golden age, we were also approached by a BEYOND THE PELOTON fan at Tesla about creating a BTP-style series following Elon on his startup and innovation story, much as we had done with Vroomen. But by 2010, as Joe and I were winding down season three of BTP (with the Cervélo TestTeam having morphed into Team Garmin Cervélo), I had my own brand story to tell.
Legitmix, the music-tech startup I co-founded, just secured 8-figure financing from Canada’s MaRS startup accelerator and the Purple Angels, early Shopify investors from Ottawa who brought a Shopify founder onto our advisory board. More on this story on my Legitmix and Startup & Innovation pages of this site, where you can find explainers and videos featuring Diplo and other taste-making DJs, and make sure to check out my Cervélo page.
Besides Cervélo and Legitmix, I’ve created branded content strategy and production for a variety of other innovators – including interactive experiences for Gallipoli-based ceramics company Kale, New York’s Success Academy charter school, Snoop Dogg’s Merry Jane cannabis content brand, all while at leading digital studio Jam3, for whom I wrote and directed case study videos for their award-winning projects, included the 2x Cannes Lions winner CHANGE GOUT, which I also wrote and produced, and the D&AD and Banff winner and CSA nominated SONS OF GALLIPOLI, for which I was co-producer, director and interactive director.
For integrated production company Makers.to, I served as dual-role producer and creative on branded content for Detroit-based cannabis startup Common Citizen, Bombardier’s live Can-Am BRP launch, Corona’s Sunset concert series, leading Canadian startup launchpad MaRS (which co-funded Legitmix), and multiple story-driven global Microsoft campaigns, one released in 2023 shot in four countries, including Ghana, where I worked with old friends with whom I created the above-mentioned Cadbury branded content with, and met new friends who create music videos for major Afrobeats artists, like Mr. Eazi, who coincidentally works closely with friend and collaborator Jesse Sewer of the Large Up Agency.
Throughout this branded content journey I’ve learned a lot about non-fiction transmedia storytelling strategy, which I unwittingly pioneered for Cervélo, and now teach at Seneca Polytechnic. I’m of course aware of the fine line between inauthentic documentary-style branded propaganda and transparent corporate-sponsored content that brings educational or entertainment value to all stakeholders of a brand, cause, culture or institution. Something I’ve outlined in a presentation I created for Jam3 called The Dos and Don’ts of Branded Content (available on request).