Iconic sports nutrition brand SiS fuels some of the best sportspeople in the world. Have you heard of the prolific cycling team INEOS Grenadiers? How about Tottenham Hotspur Football Club or Saracens Rugby?

Read any sports news, and you’ll likely hear the stories of athletes powered by the expert nutrition SiS offers. But the everyday consumer is different. Although they care about performance, they’re often drawn to discount-driven sales tactics.

SiS needed a brand-first campaign to reduce their reliance on promotional marketing. This campaign was timed to coincide with the Giro D’Italia — one of cycling’s biggest events — without being an official event sponsor.

We all look up to the sporting greats. Events like the Giro inspire millions of keen amateur cyclists worldwide. The close proximity of the crowd to the athletes in competitions like these helps them feel part of the action.

Our strategy sparked the idea of ‘wish you were here’, inspiring cycling fans to watch their heroes up close while empowering the next generation of elite cyclists. We aimed to increase the emotional draw of the event by showing the raw reality of high-level performance — the highs, the lows, and the immersive action. This was designed to inspire fans to take action, powered by SiS.

Inspired by the motivational messages fans spray on roads around cycling events, our designers created a bold, typography-led campaign identity for social media and on-site promotions. Our work depicts genuine moments of pain, drama, and triumph, with distinctive photography allowing fans to experience every ache, bump, and rush of dopamine as athletes cross the finish line.

The monochrome imagery and pops of the Giro’s signature colour (pink) were rolled into a flexible campaign toolkit that SiS used across other events, swapping to the iconic yellow for the Tour de France, of course.