very bad marketing and PR example care of bodum

what’s going on here?

see the white thing in front of the bus? it’s a buggy/people carrier/chariot/ pedal-powered tuk-tuk type thing, put on the road by bodum and pedalling UP the hill on oxford street, darlinghurst on the tail end of peak hour.

it could be a great idea, (perhaps in a city which is flat and doesn’t have massive congestion issues like sydney) but…… whoever came up with this idea deserves a good slap at least, or lose their job at worst.

whoever at bodum signed off on this and paid for it definitively needs a reality check and a good kick in the ass.

so the brief is that there is some funky looking pedal-powered people-mover trawling up oxford st, offering free rides to all the girls. yaay! that sounds great. it looks different and that means it will attract the attention of cashed up professionals and gay guys walking the strip. how wrong.

apart from the fact that sydney-siders are pretty unaccustomed to this thing (making the bike guys come across as being a bit creepy), i managed to walk up the hill at the same speed as this guy pedaled.

now granted that i take a longer stride than most, i don’t slow down a bus which carries more than 20 people home.

see the guy on the bike wearing a high-vis vest? he is OVERTAKING the bus and will soon overtake the bodum-badly-thought-out-dickhead-mobile.

a hummer driver in sydney thinks that when people are trying to get a look at him through his tinted windows, they all want to know who he is and wants to roll with him. wrong. the majority wants to see what kind of a fuckwit with a tiny cheesedick drives that car.

same thing for the bodum chariot crew – the main reason that people stare, is that they want to know who is holding the 30 people on a bus from getting home in time. PR FAIL! big time.

my personal message to the people involved at bodum australia is this…. if you have cankles, i have the cure.

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1. the dust storm
2. prospect reservoir
3. dickman – what is it with all the dicks popping up in sydney?
4. souless, personless
5. yet more guerilla art
6. tranquil afternoon along the banks of the scenic cooks river
7. downs syndrome elvis – parkes elvis festival 2011
8. the free market – an ‘art exhibition’ sells nothing – take what you want for free – awesome!
9. a tongan supermarket and the tongan diet
10. federal park in annandale – a top spot

Posted: June 1st, 2010 under Photo A Day.
Tags: advertising, bodum, buses, congestion, darlinghurst, fail, infrastucture, marketing, oxford st, Paddington, pr, Surry Hills, Sydney, traffic