By Nick Hope, Digital
Relative Advantage is the idea that runs through everything we do at Bountiful Cow, shaping our thinking across activation, brand strategy and creative. Since joining the agency, a year and a half ago, I’ve found myself thinking about it a lot. If I’m honest, it took me a while to fully get my head around it. What helped was looking for Relative Advantage in the things that inspire me outside of work. The most interesting cases I find are not those who have more than others but the people who thought differently. This is when it started making a lot more sense to me.
The more examples I came across, the more convinced I became that success often has less to do with resources and more to do with perspective. Time and again, the people and brands that stand out aren’t those with the biggest advantages on paper, but those who see opportunities others overlook. I could cite dozens of examples, but one of the most compelling recent examples came from the FIFA World Cup.
I’m not a huge sports fan but I can appreciate the spectacle of major sporting events, the fan interaction and the sense of collective belonging through language, ritual and identity. This appreciation is why Florence Pernet’s work stands out to me, traditionally sports photography has valued high-definition images documenting the iconic moments in sports history.
Pernet’s style takes a different approach focusing on the subtler, sensitive moments. Born and raised in Paris and influenced by richness of the city’s sports culture. Pernet broke into the industry photographing PSG matches after photographing and filming some well-known PSG-affiliated YouTuber’s supplying her the contacts necessary to get press credentials. Alongside an impressive body of work photographing some of the world’s biggest sporting events and collaborating with brands such as Nike and Adidas, Pernet has retained a distinctive creative style throughout.
Not only is Pernet’s creative perspective contrarian to the prized proximity, polish and glitz of the sports photography, her approach to the 2026 World Cup stood out to me as a powerful example of Relative Advantage in action. Historically, covering an event of that magnitude has depended on securing accreditation, meeting visa requirements and gaining physical access to the tournament.
Amidst the absurd difficulties that disrupted athletes, referees, officials and media professionals alike, Pernet’s mindset became her greatest asset when she was denied accreditation. Instead of treating this as a blocker she treated it like a creative brief photographing the tournament from her Paris apartment and as she put it: “I don’t have credentials, but I do have my TV and my own vision.“
Her impact didn’t go unnoticed, French favourite Michael Olise adopted her distinctive visual style replacing his Instagram feed with the grainy moiré-effect pitch side images in Pernet’s style. She was also contacted by the Portuguese Football Federation to collaborate.
To me, Pernet’s work is a stellar example of Relative Advantage in action, an example that success doesn’t come from the biggest budgets, the best resources or even access; it came with a mindset that allowed her to see opportunities others missed.
