Mercedes Exploits the Daredevil Cyclist Stereotype

You might have seen it making the rounds over the last couple of days
— the new Mercedes ad in which NYC bike messenger Austin Horse challenges a driver in
one of the company’s luxury vehicles to a race from Harlem to the
Fulton Ferry landing in Brooklyn.

There are many irritating things about the ad, including the lousy
acting and the roundabout route the car takes (why the Brooklyn-Queens
Expressway and not the FDR?). At more than seven minutes (it’s in two
parts on YouTube), it’s also tediously long.

But worst is the perpetuation of that old stereotype, the “maniac”
bike rider. The driver says at the beginning that he thinks the contest
will be unfair: “Sure, he gets to ride like a bat out of hell and we
have to follow the traffic rules.”

And of course, that’s the way it goes. No doubt, the risk-taking
footage is fun to watch, and some
local blogs have posted favorably about the ad (even Bike
Snob NYC is mild in his critique).

But Mikael Colville-Andersen at Copenhagenize
has it right when he says the Mercedes spot is an effective attack on
the idea that riding a bicycle in a major city could ever be comfortable
or normal:

This is brilliant “Car Empire Strikes Back” marketing from
Mercedes.
After watching it if I had to choose between sitting in a Mercedes or
riding all sub-cultural like that — give me the Mercedes any day.…

[The
car industry has] spent a century perfecting the art of marketing and
now that they
are faced with real competition — the rebirth of urban cycling — they
are tweaking their adverts accordingly.

The acting in the
above advert is abysmal, but the point is clear. It reinforces the
misconception of urban cycling as being a lawless, adrenaline-based and
sub-cultural pursuit. The smug tone is brilliantly devised and
executed.…

Unless
we start learning from the car industry’s marketing brilliance, as they
once learned from the bicycle industry, the battle is lost before the
foot hits the pedal. Marketing urban cycling for regular citizens like
we market every other product — positively. At every turn.

More from around the network: Utility
Cycling asks whether Google’s new bike directions are a
“game-changer.” Hub
and Spokes has a contrarian view on bike-sharing in Minneapolis.
And The
Transport Politic has the rundown on the top 10 transit projects
completed in the U.S. and Canada over the last 10 years.