Mondraker — Global Brand Campaign
Role
CMO / Strategic Marketing Lead
Scope
Global integrated campaign
Channels
Film, Social, Email, PR, Digital, Print, Retail, Partner
Year
2021 (Mondraker 20th Anniversary)
632K+
Views of the launch film on YouTube
8+
International specialist media outlets — simultaneous launch coverage
#1
Mondraker\’s most successful campaign at the time
6 yrs
Later — still part of Mondraker\’s brand architecture
Opening
00
Today I did something unusual.
I asked AI to investigate a Mondraker campaign called “20 Years of Winning”. I did not tell it that I had been behind it. I wanted it to analyse the campaign from the outside, without memory, affection or any obligation to be generous with me. It found more than 632,000 views of the main film. Simultaneous coverage across Pinkbike, Bike Magazine, Vital MTB, Mountain Bike Action, IMB, Singletrack, AS, MTB-News and other international media. It found a campaign that had travelled across markets, generated conversation within mountain bike culture and endured over time.
Then I asked another question: “Without knowing who it was, how would you imagine the marketing director behind this campaign — the person who helped make it happen?” Its answer moved me. Not out of vanity. Nor because a machine had said something flattering about me. It moved me because it brought back the memories of one of the most important pieces of work in my career and allowed me to see it today from a completely different perspective. And because that marketing director was me.
In 2021, Mondraker was celebrating its twentieth anniversary. It was an independent Spanish brand with an extraordinary history, but it did not yet have the size, structure or resources of the global companies it was competing against. Its revenue was approximately half what it is today. We could have celebrated the anniversary in the conventional way — recovering archive photography, building a timeline. All of that would have been correct. But it would not have changed the perception of the brand.
Even today, “20 Years of Winning” remains part of Mondraker\’s brand architecture. Six years on, it is still one of the most watched pieces of content on Mondraker\’s YouTube channel.
The Question
01
The question was not how to celebrate twenty years. It was something else.
From the moment I arrived at Mondraker, I worked relentlessly to reposition the company around its most powerful differentiator: its Racing DNA. I did not invent that DNA. It had existed long before me. It was present in Miguel Pina, in the first bikes, in product development, in Zero Suspension, in Forward Geometry, in the riders, in the racing team and in all the results Mondraker had achieved at the highest level of the sport.
But possessing an extraordinary history and understanding its strategic value are two very different things. Mondraker was still perceived in several markets as a generalist mountain bike brand. Behind that perception, however, was a history of racing, innovation and product development capable of supporting a far more powerful position. My contribution was seeing it. I understood that Mondraker was not using racing simply as a sponsorship platform. Racing had always been its development laboratory. That relationship could become the centre of a new way of explaining the brand.
The Strategic Tensions
Heritage vs. future ambition
Brand storytelling vs. product communication
Global consistency vs. local activation
Powerful creative idea vs. operational complexity of delivery
Owned channels vs. distributor, dealer, athlete, and media networks
The People
02
The creative idea was not the work of one person.
When we began developing the anniversary campaign with SHIFT Active Media, the strategic territory I had defined met an exceptional creative team. For several months, we worked together to find a way to transform twenty years of innovation, bicycles and racing into a story that could be felt, rather than simply explained.
We were not a client handing over a brief and an agency executing it. We worked as one team. We discussed, developed and refined the idea for months until we found a way of telling the story that matched the ambition we had for the brand. From that collective process came the central creative idea: condensing Mondraker\’s entire evolution into a single 107-second downhill run at Val di Sole.
01
The strategic direction
Before “20 Years of Winning” existed, before we began working with SHIFT and before anyone had imagined the idea of Val di Sole, there was already a clear conviction: Mondraker needed to stop behaving like a generalist brand and begin occupying the territory it had legitimately earned — that of a high-performance brand born from racing. That was the engine behind everything that followed.
02
SHIFT Active Media
Will Fripp, then Client Services Director; Tim Durant, Head of Design; Charlie Evans, Account Manager; and the wider SHIFT creative and production team brought talent, judgement and an extraordinary ability to transform the territory we had defined into an exceptional cinematic idea. They were not simply executing a brief. They were shaping the vision alongside us.
03
Miguel Pina and Israel Romero
Miguel Pina supported the campaign unconditionally. He backed an unconventional, ambitious and disruptive idea for a company of our size. Without his trust, the concept would never have moved beyond a presentation. Israel Romero was another fundamental figure. He helped us recover the original bikes, reconstruct each period, find the correct clothing and equipment, and ensure that the story was authentic down to its smallest details.
04
MS Mondraker Team
Markus Stöckl, Lukas Haider, Laurie Greenland and the entire team became involved far beyond what could be expected from a conventional sponsorship relationship. They contributed riders, knowledge, technical expertise, logistics and a genuine willingness to help turn the concept into a real film on one of the most demanding downhill tracks in the world.
05
The film belongs to that collective effort
Miguel Pina on the Petrol, Markus Pekoll, Rob Warner — whose voice does not simply explain downhill racing, his voice is downhill racing — and every person working in front of and behind the camera added another essential layer to the production. Recognising that does not diminish my contribution. It places it exactly where it belongs.
On location — SHIFT Active Media production crew at Val di Sole, Italy
The Film
03
Twenty years. One run.
The film began with Miguel Pina leaving the start gate on the 2001 Petrol — Mondraker\’s first downhill bike. As the descent progressed, the bikes, riders and eras changed: the 2007 Kaiser, the first Summum prototype from 2009, the 2012 Summum Pro Team, the 2016 World Championship special edition and the 2020 Summum Carbon Pro Team. Val di Sole was the only location that made sense. It was where Mondraker had achieved an unprecedented first, second and third place in the 2016 Downhill World Championships, and where Laurie Greenland had secured his first Elite World Cup victory in 2019.
The narration had to come from Rob Warner. For an entire generation of mountain bike fans, his voice is downhill racing.
20 Years of Winning — Official Mondraker Campaign Film
In 107 seconds, the film made visible something that would otherwise have required dozens of pages to explain: every generation of Mondraker had made the next one possible.
The result was a film that did not feel as though it had been made by a company trying to catch up with the world\’s leading brands. It felt as though it had been made by a brand that already belonged among them.
The Execution
03
An idea only has value when it becomes real.
On paper, the concept was extraordinary. In reality, it meant recovering bikes that had been out of circulation for years, reconstructing the correct equipment, coordinating riders and teams, filming in another country and making different generations of product appear to be part of one continuous descent. All of this had to happen with limited resources and within a company that still had to manage the everyday demands of a growing international business.
Our budget could not compete with those of the largest global brands. That meant the idea had to be better. The constraints forced us to be more precise, more collaborative and more demanding with every decision. We could not build awareness through the scale of investment. We had to earn it through the power of a proprietary brand truth and an execution capable of making it unforgettable.
External marketing programmes roadmap — campaign phases from launch through extended activation
Campaign launch calendar — teaser phase, launch day, and post-launch sequencing by channel
Backstage
04
Great campaigns don\’t happen. They\’re built, post by post, day by day.
The planning documents below are not polished design artefacts. They are the actual working tools that turned the creative idea into a coordinated launch programme. Every post, every platform, every partner, every timing window — mapped, sequenced, and assigned.
Launch dates, embargoes, dependencies, asset formats, platform requirements, and partner timing were managed as one connected programme. Each channel team received exactly what they needed, when they needed it, in the format their platform required.
“20 Years of Winning” — social media plan. Date, message, platform, format, and reference asset for every post
Left: SHIFT Active Media director reviewing camera setup at Val di Sole — Right: Remote creative development calls with the SHIFT team
The Platform
05
More than an anniversary film.
“20 Years of Winning” became a complete brand platform. A dedicated digital experience explored the company\’s technological and competitive evolution in greater depth. Social content revisited the most important products and moments in Mondraker\’s history. A global activation invited owners of every generation of Mondraker to share their bicycles through #MondrakerEvolution — connecting the company\’s official story with the personal stories of its riders.
“World Cup Proven” — campaign key visual. Laurie Greenland (2020) and Miguel Pina (2001): past and present connected
Digital banners — Print advertising — Social content: consistent identity across all channel formats
Instagram evolution carousel — Pinkbike home page media takeover on launch day
Early Mondraker riders — the competitive history the brand was built on
Results
06
The most important result was not the number of views.
632K+
YouTube views of the launch film. One of Mondraker\’s most-watched pieces of content ever.
8+
International media outlets — Pinkbike, Bike Magazine, Vital MTB, MTB-News, IMB, Singletrack, AS, Mountain Bike Action — simultaneous coverage.
#1
Mondraker\’s most successful campaign at the time. Set the benchmark for subsequent brand communication.
6 yrs
Later — “20 Years of Winning” remains part of Mondraker\’s brand architecture and among its most-watched content.
International media carried the campaign across several markets and languages. The film exceeded 632,000 views and remains one of the most watched pieces of content on Mondraker\’s YouTube channel. But the campaign organised twenty years of history around one simple brand idea — bikes that make the difference, bikes that win. It gave the company a way to explain who it was, where its innovation came from and why it had earned the credibility to compete with much larger brands.
“20 Years of Winning” was not an isolated success. It was the most visible expression of a transformation we had been building: turning a generalist mountain bike company into an international high-performance brand. During my four years leading global marketing at Mondraker, we built the marketing function, developed an international campaign infrastructure and connected product, racing, distribution, retail and digital experience around a shared brand direction.
The Meaning
07
Why I am telling this story now.
Looking back six years later has allowed me to see the campaign with greater distance and clarity. I see the strategic decision that came before the creative concept. I see the months of work with SHIFT. I see Miguel\’s trust, Israel\’s commitment, the involvement of MS Mondraker Team and the talent of every person who helped bring the film to life.
I also understand my own role more clearly. I saw a value inside Mondraker that had not yet been fully expressed. I understood that its racing history could transform its positioning. I turned that conviction into a strategic direction, brought together the right partners, defended an ambitious idea and led the process until it became real. That does not make “20 Years of Winning” my campaign alone. It makes it an example of the kind of leadership I believe great marketing requires.
What this kind of leadership requires
Identify the opportunity and establish the direction before anyone else sees it
Raise the ambition, bring exceptional people together, and create the conditions for exceptional work
Protect the idea through the complexity — from presentation to production to activation
A CMO does not need to be the sole author of every idea. The role is to make the conditions for great work possible.
Contact
Reach out today and you’ll get a clear plan, honest advice, and a team that cares about the outcome as much as you do. Whether you prefer a quick call or a simple email, getting started is easy.
