The Client

The cycling world would not be where it is without SHIMANO. If you’ve ever ridden a bike, the chances are very high that SHIMANO have helped you to turn the wheels.
In 2021, SHIMANO will also celebrate their 100th anniversary – a century of innovation and defining the benchmark in cycling technology.
With a rich legacy spanning across road and mountain biking – they’re the only e-bike system maker that truly understand all aspects of cycling.

1,500,000

YouTube Views & Counting

The Challenge

With demand for e-bikes at an all-time high and their increase in popularity on the rise, this is a market showing no signs of slowing down.

Having worked strategically with SHIMANO Europe previously to strengthen their e-bike brand and category, it was time to mark the launch of the eagerly anticipated EP8 e-bike system.

With a strong and compelling product & brand proposition in place, the brief was simple yet comprehensive:

– Develop a new global creative campaign.

– Tailored communication across US, European & Asian markets.

– Establish campaign guidelines, help define and create all launch assets.

– Assume role of lead agency to support local markets roll out.

The Result

Building on the success of predecessor e-bike systems, EP8 was widely considered revolutionary both internally and externally by brand partners.

From this, Ride the Revolution was born; a subtle nod to the global e-bike revolution we’re currently witnessing and in acknowledgement to successful product evolution.

With our message, lock-up and creative direction established, campaign guidelines were created to ensure consistency in our communication to target riders across all territories.

In addition to creating a full suite of campaign artwork, our work alongside the SHIMANO team also included writing a series of brand partner articles and producing key marketing & advertising assets to be used across 12 different languages.

For obvious reasons, 2020 posed big challenges for content production. However, working super collaboratively & closely with our video team on the ground in the Alps, we managed to creatively direct all four location shoots remotely from our own homes.

“With the campaign 'Ride the Revolution' we wanted to convince dealers of SHIMANO's new e-bike system EP8 to increase sell in, help them sell out and convince end-consumers that EP8 is the new benchmark in the e-bike market. With that objective in mind we were really happy with expertise of Brandwave to create something that stands out next to the more regular marketing communication in the bicycle industry.

With the help of Brandwave Marketing we created an impactful (and bit bold) creative concept and a big range of effective marketing assets. A true pleasure to work with them.”

Jeroen van VulpenE-bike Category Marketing Manager