Humour for Health
Bringing an informative health campaign targeting cyclists to life with humour and wit.
A speculative multi-media project executed within 5 weeks.
Brief
An engaging but informative campaign was needed to highlight health concerns for cyclists. The topic of health can be incredibly difficult to engage with. It can be dull and boring and also have incredibly alarming information that no one wants to acknowledge. Health is essential and critical to everyone, but can incite unnecessary fear and worry. This campaign needed to strike a balance; it needed to communicate medical information with sense of urgency but with a tone of ease.
Solution
To balance the potentially sensitive messages regarding health, humour was prescribed to soften and provide comic relief. The playful tone featured on campaign posters allowed viewers to interact and digest the information without being disinterested or worried. This light-hearted tone of voice paired with photography helped create both visual and linguistic puns.
The art direction, a parody of luxury car brands, portrayed cyclists and their bikes in a heroic and attractive masculine fashion. This provided a funny contrast to the tongue-and-cheek copywriting.
The result was a series of humorous posters that addressed an array of health concerns. An engaging and energetic video advert was produced to compliment the poster campaign.
Art direction
This art direction used the familiar visual language of luxury sports car brands and a playful tone of voice to communicate health information in an amusing way.
Photography was dark and high contrast, highlighting an aura of sleekness and luxury. This alluring imagery portrayed the cyclist and their bikes as stoic heroes. The polished photography portrayed cyclists in a positive light, was visually intriguing and also a comical contrast to the tongue-in-cheek copywriting.
Incredible insights into cycling culture and insider knowledge.
Cyclists were included throughout the whole project, providing helpful feedback with each iteration. Cyclists provided a wealth of knowledge including but not limited to; sock etiquette, unique cycling hand signals, advantages of shaving, preference on spandex, cyclists colloquialisms and reasons why drivers are the worse.
This provided great content for great copywriting that not only addressed health concerns but also included ‘inside jokes’ that only the cycling community would understand. This helped created strategically targeted campaigns aimed at the male cycling audience.
“Oh yes, tan lines are the mark of a proper cyclist, the stronger the tan lines the more committed
you are.”
- Ashley Towey, Competitive Cyclist
“There's a big debate on if shaving your legs makes you more aerodynamic. I shave my legs because it's less likely I'll get an infection if I get injured.”
- Peter Hall, Bike Commuter
“There’s also a less well known acronym of MAMIL which stands for: Middle Aged Man in Lycra which I find hilarious”
- Ruth Pickering, Cycling Enthusiast
Story Board for 60 second Advert
Effective Multi-media Campaign
A fast-paced advert that parodied existing stereotypical sports car adverts accompanied the poster campaign. The film featured dynamic camera shots and drone footage cut together to Vivaldi’s ‘Four seasons’. The narrative follows a cyclist who appears to be disgruntled as he cycles. It is not only until the final frame we realise it is due to the discomfort of his underwear and saddle. The final frame displays the same tongue-in-cheek messaging highlighting the underlying health concern.