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How about getting married wearing bike jerseys?
By Toni Fitzgerald
Jan 28, 2010
Say you make high-end bicycles and you have some new
models coming out. How do you tap into your potential
consumers?
You could go the route of traditional advertising,
launching a major print campaign in the various bicycle
magazines. But that can be expensive.
You want to reach the hardcore enthusiast, but not pay
gobs to reach everyone else, which is to say the beginning
rider or the weekend peddler.
More important, though, you want to build word of mouth,
which is a huge influencer when it comes to high-end bikes.
Titus Cycles of Tempe, Ariz., took the challenge to its
agency, TDA Advertising & Design in Boulder, Colo.
Here's what they came up with: a series of contests in
which the winners receive Titus bikes by doing something
wacky.
In one, the winning couple gets married wearing Titus
jerseys, in another a Titus bike goes to the person
willing to get a Titus tattoo, and in the third the winner
gets his or her name changed to Rockstar 29’er, a Titus
bike.
Call it "oddvertising."
Call it not very expensive, essentially the manufacturing
cost of the bikes and the expense of running the contest
and a small budget to advertise the contests in bike
magazines.
"It is a good fit for the advertiser because they have a
limited budget so it was a mandatory that we do something
that people would talk about and want to know more about,
if not participate," says Jonathan Schoenberg, creative
director at TDA.
Here's how it works: The contest is divided into three
parts. The first, called Tat, began earlier this month.
Bikers were invited to submit a tattoo design as well as
the size and place on their body where they are interested
in having it inked. Titus fans will vote online for the
winner, who will be filmed getting the tattoo.
The second contest is called Altar and begins in April. A
couple promising to wear his and hers racing jerseys will
get a video of their ceremony as well as his and hers
bikes.
The final contest, called I.D. and starting in July,
invites Titus users to officially change their name to
Rockstar 29’er. The first to submit evidence of the new
name will receive a 2010 Titus Rockstar 29’er, a racing
bike being launched this spring.
The odds of rational people doing those things would seem
to be fairly low, but then hard-core cyclists aren't
always rational people.
A quick glance at Titus's Facebook page confirms that,
indeed, there are at least a dozen people contemplating
entering the first contest and offering to get body parts
ranging from their necks to their, ahem, nether regions
inked.
"So far response to the first ad has been great,"
Schoenberg says. "We talked to people about whether they
would get the tattoo before we did the ad, and it became
clear people were more than willing to do it."
Titus is hardly the first company to attempt so-called
human billboard advertising. Golden Palace has done
variations on the tattoo idea, and a man sold the space on
his forehead to an advertiser via eBay earlier this
decade.
What makes this campaign different, and why it works as an
effective alternative media stunt, is that the winners of
the Titus contest won't just be walking billboards.
They will be more like televangelists. They are actually
devoted to the bikes and likely to sing their praises long
after the ink has dried, giving Titus not just brand
exposure but positive publicity.
The idea is receiving a lot of attention.
TDA hyped the contests via spreads in bike-centric print
magazines. Titus is also posting frequent reminders about
the Tat contest on its Facebook page, where it has 1,865
fans.
And already dozens of blogs, including ones focused on
bikes, advertising and odd news, have printed the details
of the contests.
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Source: http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman2/publish/Alternative_media_43/What_people_will_do_for_a_5_000_bicycle.asp
Note: Some or all of this material may be copyrighted.
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