Bikes On Credit

Alright. I hate these ads. They get stuck in my head and make me grumpy. However, this one at least does not show us in a terrible light. When he gets denied credit, it is at the bike shop, not the car lot. This means that those of us on bicycles here in the USA are finally making an impact. It may not be the best ad, but we are not portrayed as idiots or freaks and we are encouraged to keep riding. I'll take it!

bicycles as marketing

this weekend, i went into a big chain store to get an umbrella since i lost mine during this week of rain & theirs are cheap and sorta girly cute. when i got there i saw some of this phenomenon of bikes as marketing i believed we've talked about before a bit.

here is a smaller store using the same technique.


i notice that while both seem to be using the "cool" card since "cool" sells things, each store seems to be saying something different. i think the big chain store is saying, hey ride bikes, look cute, get exercise, get fit, get skinny, look good in clothes, buy lots of (our) clothes. the other store seems to be saying, hey, bikes are utilitarian. see, you can put our rugs in a bakfiets and transport it from our store to your store/home/whatever.

anyway, those are some things i've seen in my everyday life of bikes as props. aside from television commercials, i haven't seen it too much around, but i think that's because i don't normally go to stores so much.

also, as an aside, i believe that the display people may have had this display in mind while creating the newer one. ummhmm.