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.”
Netflix Series “The Leopard” Spots Classic Italian Novel, Remakes It As A Sumptuous Period Drama
"The Leopard," a new Netflix series, takes the classic Italian novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa and transforms it into a sumptuous period piece showing the struggles of the aristocracy in 19th-century Sicily, during tumultuous social upheavals as their way of life is crumbling around them.
Tom Shankland, who directs four of the eight episodes, had the courage to attempt his own version of what is one of the most popular films in Italian history. The 1963 movie "The Leopard," directed by Luchino Visconti, starring Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale, won the Palme d'Or in Cannes.
One Italian critic said that it would be the equivalent of a director in the United States taking "Gone with the Wind" and turning it into a series, but Shankland wasn't the least bit intimidated.
He said that he didn't think of anything other than his own passion for the project, which grew out of his love of the book. His father was a university professor of Italian literature in England, and as a child, he loved the book and traveling to Sicily with his family.
The book tells the story of Don Fabrizio Corbera, the Prince of Salina, a tall, handsome, wealthy aristocrat who owns palaces and land across Sicily.
His comfortable world is shaken with the invasion of Sicily in 1860 by Giuseppe Garibaldi, who was to overthrow the Bourbon king in Naples and bring about the Unification of Italy.
The prince's family leads an opulent life in their magnificent palaces with servants and peasants kowtowing to their every need. They spend their time at opulent banquets and lavish balls with their fellow aristocrats.
Shankland has made the series into a visual feast with tables heaped with food, elaborate gardens and sensuous costumes.... Read More