The campaign from Skoda’s online
cycling magazine ‘We Love Cycling’, has received several awards for its creativity
in combatting bicycle theft. Awards included the Czech Art Directors Club’s ADC
Creative Awards, British D&AD’s ‘Wooden Pencil’ and Digiday’s category for
‘Best Use of Video Content’ in New York.
For the entertaining video,
three bikes were set as bait in Prague, Amsterdam and Rome. Thieves, who just
couldn’t resist the temptation, were filmed by a hidden camera. The pilferers
were in for a surprise: as soon as they laid their hands on someone else’s
property, a band appeared out of nowhere and struck up a fanfare. The puzzled
reaction of the small-time criminals was very entertaining to the video’s three
million viewers. The live commentary and running clock added to the excitement:
it showed in which of the three European cities the bike was stolen first. The
video skilfully used elements of live sports reporting, as well as elements of
reality TV shows.
“We are very pleased with
these awards,” said Stefan Büscher, Head of Marketing and Product at Skoda.
“The great success of this viral video demonstrates that we were right in deciding
to explore new avenues and implement fresh ideas into our customer communications,”
Büscher continued.
The video, titled ‘European
Bike Stealing Championship 2015’, went viral in autumn last year. It uses
humour to raise awareness about bike theft throughout Europe. Mustard, a Prague-based
content agency, is responsible for the campaign, which received more than three
million views worldwide. The annual presentation of the D&AD Awards forms
the highlight of the ‘Design and Art Direction’ association’s international
marketing festival. Skoda’s video has been awarded the ‘Wooden Pencil’ at this
year’s festival.
Innovative and groundbreaking
content from all over the world is honoured at the annual Digiday Content
Marketing Awards in New York – just like the ‘European Bike Stealing
Championship 2015’ viral campaign.
Each year, the Czech Art
Directors Club awards the prestigious ADC Creative Awards to particularly
creative advertising agencies. For a long time, the prize was called ‘Louskacek’
– in English: ‘nutcracker’. This year, the anti-bike-theft campaign from ‘We Love
Cycling’ and ŠKODA took home several of the top prizes: as well as the coveted ‘Grand
Prix’ title, the jury also awarded the online cycling magazine’s video the gold
medal for the best online film as well as the bronze medal in the ‘Branded
Content’ category.
With the prize-winning
‘European Bike Stealing Championship 2015’ viral video and numerous articles,
‘We Love Cycling’ aimed to raise awareness among bike owners throughout Europe
of the problem of bike theft and to encourage a debate on the subject.
Source: Skoda