Bicycle ads say moms' lives are all about housework

What year is it again? 1954? 1964?

Two thousand fourteen, you say? I'd never know it from looking at this Huffy Bicycles campaign by Brunner, Pittsburgh. (Via Ads Of The World.)

The insight of cycling as a way to break free from life drudgery is a nice one. But what makes up the majority of these moms' lives? Housework, of course! Dishes! Dusting! Laundry!

Sure, there are many women who still stay home to raise their kids. And the hard work and sacrifices they make are important and worthy of respect. But to define those women's lives through housework is like giving one of them a vacuum for Christmas. It says "this is who you are. This is your job. This is what is expected of you." (Gods forbid a husband stay home, or even lift a broom, eh?)

The only hint that this campaign is from this decade, century and millennium is one execution that has the woman using mobile devices; not for any professional purpose, mind you. Just to kill the time.

How to sell bikes: a historical perspective

These pics are from a sponsored Buzzfeed post by Schwinn. It's a good strategy, really, and the ads are really interesting.

But a few jumped out at me:

Golden Age Hollywood Endorsement

"You know how to pedal, don't you Steve?"

And what a celebrity! There is no way anyone classier has ever sold bikes, like, ever. (and that includes Joan Crawford and Doris Day, who are on the complete list.)

Cowboy Endorsement

Complete with awesomely awkward headline!

The "Substitute for Parental Love" Angle

Years later, McDonald's would base its entire brand on this con.

...Great White Hunter Endorsement

As soon as the illustrator was done, he skinned the tiger to make a swell rug!

Sexual Innuendo

Does the seat vibrate or something?

Which leads us, naturally, to: 

Blatant Sexual Exploitation (of women)

Why does that always happen?

So there you have it: even in bicycle advertising, all roads lead to smut.

A really, really depressing bicycle safety campaign

The concept works, I think, in conveying the idea of "distance". But at first I wasn't sure who it was talking to, cyclists (keep your distance from cars) or car drivers (keep your distance from cyclists). I was also unsure whether the 1.5 m was supposed to give me a mental image of a car tailgating a bike, or vice versa, or whether it was how much clearance drivers need to give a bike while driving past one. But at least it got me thinking about the issue, I guess.

What the campaign succeeds at is conveying the emotions of sadness and regret. It is quite honestly the most depressing ad campaign I have seen in quite some time.

And that too can be a problem. Many ad consumers simply can't cope with negative emotions. They protect themselves and their consciences by mentally separating themselves from the ad. ("That's not me!") This is called defensive processing, and it is the sworn enemy of hard-hitting social marketing.

That said, I was still moved by this campaign. When I am behind the wheel, I try to be as respectful and cautious as possible of both cyclists and pedestrians. 

And as a cyclist? Let's just say that this campaign just confirms my fears about riding a bike in traffic.

Campaign by Y&R South Africa
Spotted on Ads of The World

Look at that asshole in the bike lane

A new Tumblr documents cars driving and parking in one of Toronto's busiest bike lanes in front of Sam James Coffee Bar and Speakeasy Tattoo, on Harbord St.

I'm not sure how effective a shaming strategy it will be, since the cars and drivers are hard to identify, but I'm sure it at least makes them feel some sense of justice.

Especially when they bust the TTC

What do you think? Is this a good way to start raising awareness of bike-friendly cities?

Tip via Treehugger

Espesciall

Sometimes it's best not to campaign it

Saw this Lithuanian ad on I Believe in Advertising, and loved it:

And not just the illustration, either. If you're going to sell urban bikes to their target market, you can't go wrong making fun of the well-heeled but stressed out steel cage drivers.

Then I saw these:

The girl needs some common sense and a cab. The guy needs a day job to wake up to... and possibly a cab. Neither of these latter two ads do anything to sell bikes except reference young adult lifestyles.

Yeah, they look awesome. But why not stop when you're ahead, Love Agency? Not all ideas require tenuously-related sets of three.

F'd Ad Fridays: GM insults cyclists, gets its bumper handed to it

Copyranter posted this phenomenally dumb ad from GM, aimed at college students across the United States.

The culture wars between drivers and cyclists are not something the automotive giant wants to wade into. There are already fights in cities all around North America about new bike lanes on downtown streets.

Just this week, where I live, a cyclist was killed as a result of being doored by a careless parked driver, while the trial opened of a man accused of ploughing into five cyclists in his van in the suburbs two years ago.

And right now, social media networks are full of content like this:

I'm not going to say cars are evil. (My wife owns a car.) And I'm not going to beatify cyclists, because as a pedestrian I have been at the receiving end of near-misses by aggressive riders. But I will say that a goddamn car manufacturer — especially one accused of once trying to destroy public transit in the US — is really endangering its social licence by trying to convince young people that they should be embarrassed not to drive a car.

And now even GM agrees. In response to pressure from cycling advocates and lots of Twitter hate, they have pulled the ad.

Policing the bike lanes, Lithuanian style

My own city of Ottawa has just recently started getting hardcore on bike lanes, physically segregating them from car traffic and patrolling them. There has been predictable backlash from inconvenienced drivers and businesses.

In Vilnius, Lithuania, the bike lanes have a bigger problem: rich and obnoxious citizens who use them as parking spaces for their luxury cars. So the Mayor decided to stage this dramatic demonstration of how he intends to end the conflict permanently — with an armoured military vehicle:



Hard. Core.

UPDATE: Adland reports that this was actually a comedy segment of the Lithuanian Erik & Mackan comedy show. Running over the cars was apparently the Mayor's idea, though.