In a departure from its traditional print advertising, Specialized Bicycles is inviting customers to the “ride-in” movies in its latest advertising endeavor. With the help of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners (GS&P), San Francisco, the company has launched a new Web site, www.specialized movies.com, dedicated to films featuring various bike models.
“Historically print advertising has been our biggest marketing channel. Currently, I can confidently say that the Web is our single most important means of communicating with our customers,” said Sean McLaughlin, who is responsible for global marketing at Specialized. “If you were to turn the clock back let’s say three to five years that would not have been the case. The balance has definitely shifted towards the interactive side.”
He said this shift comes with the goal of reaching out to a new audience, casual cyclists who are not familiar with Specialized or people who don’t ride yet but are interested in becoming cyclists.
“One of the goals for this was to reach an audience we otherwise might not be able to talk to. When we look at our print advertising, Specialized is a relatively small business and we don’t have the ad placement budget to put ads in Newsweek or Time. So when it comes to print media we’re pretty confined to cycling enthusiast publications–and that audience is one that we have been talking with and to for a long time. Hopefully with the Web we can get the brand and some of our exciting products out in front of people that otherwise might have been out of our reach.”
Because Specialized is such a hip brand, it made perfect sense to Rich Silverstein, founding partner of GS&P and one of the creative directors for the films, to have advertising that could be a part of popular culture, which these days includes YouTube and Google Videos.
“What’s great about having this new phenomenon of a film that’s good enough to be passed on is it proves the work is good or not. Just in two weeks’ time they’ve had hundreds of thousands of people see the films, pass them around and visit the Specialized Web site. Everything I wanted it to be is happening right now,” Silverstein said.
Adds McLaughlin, “We are able to track how many people downloaded the films and/or forwarded them to a friend. This has been very successful thus far, but many people who have seen the films have come across them on one of the popular video sites such as youtube.com, metacafe.com, or video.google.com.
“The films have been downloaded by users, modified and re-posted to various sites in various forms, so tracking the actual number of views is pretty much impossible. However, the fact that people are interacting with them so much is a clear indication to us that they’re working. The films are interesting and entertaining enough to be ‘pirated.'”
To guarantee people would download the Specialized films or forward them to a friend, Silverstein relied on just the right dosage of shock, humor and drama for the first two films. Two more are in the works.
The animated “Happy Entrails,” directed by Tom Koh of Blind, Inc., Santa Monica, which stars the Stumpjumper FSR, has the feel of a Saturday morning cartoon that went wrong–the key to the effectiveness being the element of surprise from an unexpected turn for the gory. Working in pen and pencil, the Blind team created a world that resembled an innocent children’s cartoon, but at the same time was inhabited by a dangerous cast of characters. Blind used traditional cell-animation for the majority of the characters. Additional motion, such as the fire, was done with 3D applications Studio Max and Maya.
The happy-go-lucky rider endures hazards such as a rock slide, a bear, lightning, piranhas, fire-throwing bunnies and some devilish Girl Scouts. Smiling all the way, he proves that fun can be had on pretty much any ride given the right bike. The final blood-splattered scene directs viewers to the Specialized Web site.
In “Outlaw in Lycra,” directed by Dave Laden of Teak Motion Visuals, San Francisco, viewers witness a high-speed police chase involving the S-Works Roubaix SL, Specialized’s super fast road bike.
“We studied a lot of chases in LA. There’s no shortage of them,” Silverstein said with a laugh. “We found one that we could play around with that we felt could work with bicycles. We removed cars and put bikes in using green screen. There’s a lot of special effects.”
In addition to being able to download or forward the films, visitors to www.specializedmovies.com can click around to find out details about the bikes’ features, download specs and find a dealer, which drives them to Specialized Bicycles’ main Web site. Silverstein is pleased by the recent surge in first-time visitors to the site.
“The most rewarding thing about the project is we told Specialized that this is a new way to advertise and we’re proving to them it works,” Silverstein said. “This shows numbers. People have gone to the Web site who have never gone before. It’s totally proven.
“What is also gratifying is the people who worked on the project put their heart into it just as much as if it would have been a $300,000 or $500,000 production. I think production can only get more fun because there is so much opportunity.”
Apple and Google Face UK Investigation Into Mobile Browser Dominance
Apple and Google aren't giving consumers a genuine choice of mobile web browsers, a British watchdog said Friday in a report that recommends they face an investigation under new U.K. digital rules taking effect next year.
The Competition and Markets Authority took aim at Apple, saying the iPhone maker's tactics hold back innovation by stopping rivals from giving users new features like faster webpage loading. Apple does this by restricting progressive web apps, which don't need to be downloaded from an app store and aren't subject to app store commissions, the report said.
"This technology is not able to fully take off on iOS devices," the watchdog said in a provisional report on its investigation into mobile browsers that it opened after an initial study concluded that Apple and Google effectively have a chokehold on "mobile ecosystems."
The CMA's report also found that Apple and Google manipulate the choices given to mobile phone users to make their own browsers "the clearest or easiest option."
And it said that the a revenue-sharing deal between the two U.S. Big Tech companies "significantly reduces their financial incentives" to compete in mobile browsers on Apple's iOS operating system for iPhones.
Both companies said they will "engage constructively" with the CMA.
Apple said it disagreed with the findings and said it was concerned that the recommendations would undermine user privacy and security.
Google said the openness of its Android mobile operating system "has helped to expand choice, reduce prices and democratize access to smartphones and apps" and that it's "committed to open platforms that empower consumers."
It's the latest move by regulators on both sides of the Atlantic to crack down on the... Read More