Denmark's Viking helmet safety advertWhat's a much better way to advertise to cyclists? Vikings, of course. Denmark has a huge cycling culture and to encourage more riders to wear a helmet the Danish Road Safety Council has issued this hilarious PSA.
Toyota USA's Instagram page has responded after it received a barrage of trolling for posting two pictures of a mountain biker who looked less than ready to properly hit the trails. The original posts, from May 31, showed a rider on a Walmart-style hardtail with reflectors, v brakes and, possibly worst of all, a kickstand.
It was pretty clear that someone at Toyota USA's agency hadn't done their research. While mountain bikers are a lucrative demographic, we're also notoriously particular. The post soon became a social media pile-on with roasts coming from across the mountain bike industry alongside a fair few comments from shameless influencers thirsty for a Toyota brand endorsement. Rather than delete the photo, Toyota responded Tuesday with a trio of new posts, this time with proper mountain bikes and what looks to be proper mountain bikers too.
This time the rider is on a Yeti bike with clipless shoes on and you can actually see the bike being ridden (slightly) off road too. While the ankle socks and sweat shorts may not pass the MTB snob fashion test, the
"Look mom, no kickstand" captions shows at least Toyota is aware of its gaffe.
Did we all get played?Putting on our tinfoil hats, we wouldn't be surprised if the whole thing was a ploy to ruffle some feathers. After all, the posts have appeared on many cycling news websites and the five posts seem to have the most engagement of any Toyota USA posts all year. Their ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi are some of the best at what they do, and rarely do they do things by accident.
Whatever the case, you have to say fair play to Toyota for rolling with the punches and taking the trolling on the chin. Hopefully this will be a lesson to all brands that if you want to market to mountain bikers, you need to work with mountain bikers.
To be fair,
Toyota Pacific is a partner of Pinkbike's and we are big fans of their trucks.
A Kickstarter for a kit that only fast riders could wear has been cancelledRoad Cycling Apparel brand Go Faster has cancelled a Kickstart after it received backlash for its product.
The kit was pretty standard apparel but the brand would only sell it to you if you could prove you could cycle at a certain speed. Two kits were available, one for riders who could average more than 26km/h (16mph) and one for riders who could average more than 39km/h (24mph). The rides had to be proven using Strava and the speed had to be maintained over a 10km distance.
The idea was that riders would be proud to show off their kit as it was earned, and would be less likely to throw it away, therefore increasing its sustainability.
The brand was hoping to raise £10,000 through a Kickstarter that offered kits discounted from the £115 RRP. However, the brand has since pulled down its crowdfunding effort and said:
"We’ve received many messages over the last 24 hours from the cycling community, both in support of and opposed to our Kickstarter concept. Our idea was to offer performance-minded cyclists the chance to challenge themselves to improve and reward their effort with a standout jersey. But we’ve learned that the wider cycling community does not support our approach. And this is no way to start a new cycling brand.
“We decided the best thing to do was to close the fundraising campaign and rethink our approach. We are grateful to our supporters, testers and partners for all their support on our journey.”
More info, here.
More AI generated Pinkbike commentsWe're still loving @charliewentoutside's bot's AI generated comments. Here are some of the best since
our last article:
Then today Intense announces a new brand because they don't want a sub $4k price point diluting the Intense brand equity. Which pretty much proves the consumer mindset Toyota was playing on.
AI: "Full review next post"
TL;DR: random comment
The only issue with this marketing is that folks who can ride this fast get (or buy) their kit from their club/team.
i've covered 48 km in an hour while sitting in on a week night race on a short course, with 75 or so racers to draft. certainly we weren't all special.
I’m amused this one instance of indifferent marketing triggered so many riders, and that those riders think it matters at all.