Bike Advertising Southampton

Banksy in Southampton: art or graffiti?

When Banksy's Southampton graffiti was whitewashed the disappointment spread beyond the city's artistic community.

For many it was the irritation that they hadn't seen a Banksy close-up; while others felt the area had been deprived of something with worldwide interest. What should have been an inspiration and focal point for the city was now a cultural embarrassment.

However the vandalism of the graffiti has started a serious debate about whether or not Banksy's work is art or an eyesore.

To give people the chance of seeing the image and also continue the debate, LowRyders took Banksy to the city centre.

Using two we displayed a giant poster (right) of the mural and asking shoppers and office workers the question: “Banksy in Southampton: art or graffiti?”

“We've always known our bikes can be used for displaying adverts and occasionally art in a variety of locations” said Lou Taylor, LowRyders managing director. “But when the positive effect of Banksy's work was erased we felt ideally placed to give the public another opportunity to see it.”

“And although you could draw parallels between Banksy and LowRyders using the streets to deliver a message, we're obviously more commercially minded, so in some respects we're giving something back to the community.”

LowRyders are not the only company behind this artistic push.

The picture of the mural was kindly donated by the Southern Daily Echo whose speedy response to the story meant that Banksy's image was at least preserved digitally, if not on the wall.

The posters for the billboards were printed by the Colour Company, another Southampton company who also works for and with the city's artistic community.

Here's a short video from the event 

Willow Bank School

 1 Adbike for 14 Days November – December 2011

90,000 flyer distribution

Willow bank school is a new primary school established by the Woodland Academy Trust in Bexley Kent which opened to pupils in Sep 2011. LowRyders were contacted in October 2011 to come up with a campaign to raise awareness of the school in the Bexley Borough and increase the student intake by another  5 – 10 pupils.

Campaign:

5 key schools were identified in and around the Thamesmead, Abbeywood, Erith,Greenwich and Plumstead areas.The adbike to was located on the approach roads to each school in the mornings from 8.00-9.00 and 3pm – 4pm targeting the school runs then moving to the main shopping area surrounding each school for the remainder of the day. At the same time all homes within the catchement area of all 5 schools were leafleted with the delivery coinciding with the adbike campaign.
The adbike poster and A5 flyer carried identical images with the flyer containing more detail about the Willow Bank admission and teaching policies.

Results:

After five days the uniqueness of a school, using adbikes and a leaflet drop to increase pupil numbers had reached National news with a 1/4 page item and photograph appearing on pg 3 of the Daily Telegraph 17/11/11 and also as a news item on BBC Radio 4 ‘Today Program’ This was followed up by an interview with the Executive Head Teacher on LBC Radio.

By day ten 26 student applications had been received by the Woodland Academy Trust.

At the end of the 14 day campaign 40 applications had been received and these continued to rise all through December.
The final count was 95 successful applications, 90% higher than the original estimated expectation.

Lifestyle Fitness, Lightwater

2 Lowryders

Lifestyle Fitness approached LowRyders to run a campaign that would raise awareness of their facility located in a Country Park in Surrey and to gather names and addresses to add to their database of potential customers.

Lifestyle booked 2 bikes plus 2 extra promotion staff to target weekend shoppers at both ends of the town precinct. They also requested a Blubox backpack to be used on “walkabout” to broadcast information about the ongoing promotion.

Balloons, Water bottles, vouchers and flyers were given to all LowRyders staff to hand out and t-shirts were worn to reinforce brand identity.

The team gathered over a 100 leads handed out approximately 5000 leaflets 600 balloons and 250 water bottles. Lifestyle Fitness now have plans in-place for LowRyders to run the same promotion for their other branches.

"LowRyders have a great team and ran a professional & very successful campaign"
Sarah Plant - Lifestyle Fitness