Tough economic times and the great recession had caused a big dent in motorcycle sales. It left the popularity of the world’s largest and longest running tour, the International Motorcycle Shows, sputtering. If IMS was going to connect with the next generation of bikers with the next generation of bikes, they would need to reinvigorate the brand to appeal to more than just their core audience. With a serious decline in tour attendance, Courageous was called on to rally growth.
Motorcyclists are a subculture. They appreciate authenticity. Knowing they love custom rides, we created the most unique two wheelers imaginable: human motorcycles crafted entirely of body painted contortionists and yoga gurus. Over the course of three 15-hour days, three bikes were assembled of humans to create original art inspired by Sportbikes, Dirt Bikes and Cruisers.
Human Motorcycles engaged the motorcycle audience in a whole new way. Coverage of the “making of” these human motorcycles filled 50 pages of Google results in the first month. From ABC News to Ripley’s Believe it Or Not, more than 1100 stories hit the wire from around the world. With little to no paid media, our Behind the Scenes YouTube content received 1 million YouTube views in the first month. The campaign resulted in 32 million earned media impressions in 12 weeks and generated $5.4 Million dollars in publicity value. The success of it all garnered a National PR Week Award. More so, we jumpstarted a sputtering show that had been experiencing declining sales for a decade. When the doors opened on the new show, we revved up intrigue and increased sales by 12%.
CMO / Johnson & Johnson
