Swapfiets, which describes itself as a ‘bike as a service’ company, built awareness and drove membership at the 2021 Tour De France by partnering with Team Jumbo-Visma and tire/wheel outfit Vittoria to create a blue front tire for the Tour team activated through a campaign that spanned on road appearances, bespoke social accounts, influencer partnerships, street-focused guerrilla initiatives, in-store and on-vehicle strands and the winning team racing with its signature blue front tire.
Territory: The Netherlands / Global
Agency: TDE
Objective
Swapfiets, the world leading ‘bicycle as a service’ company with nearly 220,000 members, is visually memorable for its signature blue front tires and in 2022 the brand sought to further increase Swapfiets brand awareness and boost membership further by linking its famous blue tire to the world’s most famous cycling race – the Tour the France.
Activation
So the company chose to partner with Team Jumbo-Visma (pro cycling’s leading team) and its official tire/wheel partner Vittoria during the world’s biggest bike race to bring the blue tire to the professional peloton.
The initiative, developed in harness with Dutch creative and digital agency TDE began when Team Jumbo-Visma appeared at the official pre-race team presentation with bikes all sporting blue front tires.
This was backed by social media content strand spearheaded by pieces on Instagram and Twitter amplified on bespoke Blue Tire social accounts and via brand and team platforms.
This was followed by a series of guerrilla-style social and physical activations – including creating little blue tire tricycles for the kids of riders on the team and visibility in the gaming audience via a tie-up with a bike gaming influencer who used a blue tire within Pro Cycling Manager, plus guerrilla street graffiti and logo imagery on the race route and in the 70 Swapfiets stores and on its cars around the world – all aimed at supported the initial news coverage and keeping the brand-linked conversation going through the first few days of the Tour.
On Stage Two, an additional initiative saw the brand link with a pair of Dutch YouTubers to create ‘the world’s biggest canvas – complete with signature blue front tire’ laid out beside the route and featured in official race TV coverage broadcast in more than 100 countries. Media coverage and social conversation was further boosted when the team actually won the stage.
Then, on the day before le Tour climbed Mount Ventoux on Stage 11, the campaign sent a rider up the mountain route riding an actual Swapfiets hire bike.
The campaign reached its climax at the end of the race when Team Jumbo-Visma super star Wout van Aert spun his blue front tire first across the finish line on the Champs Elysees in first place with pretty much every cycling fan in the world watching either on TV or in person.
Outcome
The initiative generated plenty of at-race and on-social interest and the buzz around the blue tires quickly became a top cycling social and media topic from the start of the race.
In total, the client reached more than 250m people through the initiative with a claimed equivalent media value of €3m through more editorial coverage in more than 140 titles and channels across the four key markets originally identified by Swapfiets.
It also drove 40,000 new members to the service.
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