Founded in 1919, Lazer are industry leaders in helmet innovation, design, protection and technology. A century of heritage and experience means
their helmets are some of the most advanced, lightweight, stylish and well ventilated on the market. Lazer continually strive to forge new paths and disrupt the typical way of thinking.
Proud of their heritage, they are a brand who has never forgotten its roots – still riding over cobbled farm roads and reaching new heights to innovate, improve and create helmets they would want to wear themselves.
The Challenge
The conversation on rotational impact started many years ago, but it was clear to Lazer that there was work to be done before cyclists truly understood its meaning.
Generally, rotational impact protection has been considered an additional feature or add on. Although inherently adding protection, it has always been at the compromise of overall helmet performance. Added weight, decreased ventilation and often more expensive.
It was Lazer’s mission, and their responsibility, to find the optimum balance of protection and helmet performance. After a decade in development, it was time for Lazer to launch their new rotational impact technology to the cycling world, a significant milestone in the history of the brand.
Lazer appointed Brandwave in 2020 as global lead agency to support in a strategic and creative capacity to bring this new technology to life. The brief was all encompassing – from building the brand from the ground up, all the way through to campaign roll-out and everything in between.
The Result
The result is KinetiCore: advanced protection technology that’s built into the helmet rather than added on.
A series of workshops was the first phase on our road to launch, helping to substantiate our strategic approach, name the technology and establish the foundations of KinetiCore.
To evolve the brand visually and build an iconic identity for KinetiCore required careful consideration and a pragmatic approach. The ID was developed to complement existing Lazer branding and designed for recognition on the local trails, lanes or Grand Tours.
”"It’s easy to make something complicated, but it takes a genius to make it simple."
This was the mantra shared by the Lazer Design Team when developing KinetiCore, and one we fully embraced when developing the creative campaign, go-to market plan and communications, channel and content strategy frameworks.
By engineering controlled crumple zones within the helmet, Lazer created a technology with the following rational benefits.
These four pillars were used consistently across the campaign and have been essential within the overall messaging.
With the cycling media saturated by creative that’s designed around the usual epic riding imagery, beautiful vistas or studio based content, we needed to create a campaign with stopping power.
The animal kingdom was used as a universally understood analogy in which to base our creative campaign and communicate that KinetiCore is an integrated technology and not an add on.
With a name defined, full brand, campaign and tone of voice guidelines were created to ensure cohesion and consistency across all communications moving forward.
An easy to understand, clear and simple tone of voice was maintained throughout production of all animation and copy content to be used across B2B & B2C.
”“Every once in a while, projects come along that become defining career moments. Helping to create and roll out KinetiCore has been an incredible ride. From developing the name and the identity, to designing deliverables to launch to the unsuspecting bike market. I am incredibly proud of the work we produced and thoroughly enjoyed working with the Lazer team in Belgium.”
Alastair LecomteCreative Director, Brandwave Marketing
Why have we created KinetiCore?
Lazer Vento KinetiCore
”“Game changing. Revolutionary. Innovative. All words often used in our marketing world, but rarely justified. KinetiCore is the exception. Proud to see this little icon out there on the lanes, trails and singletrack!”
Oliver RobinsonKey Accounts Director, Brandwave Marketing
A full suite of in-store POS materials were conceptually created, designed and rolled-out globally to mark the launch, and spread awareness across retailers.
Press kits, including product imagery, a press release and interactive PDF’s were generated before disseminating to local level PR partners.
Lazer helmets with ‘KinetiCore’ were officially launched earlier this year at the Tour of Flanders with Team Jumbo-Visma.
KinetiCore also made a strong debut at this year’s Tour de France with Jonas Vingegaard taking home the yellow and polka dot jerseys, with Wout van Aert in Green.
At Le Tour de France Femmes, an equally strong performance from Team Jumbo-Visma saw Marianne Vos take home the green jersey.
”“Brandwave is an inspiring team of creative people who are also very process-oriented, this in my opinion is a winning combo. I will recommend Brandwave to any outdoor sports brand in need of high level brand or campaign strategy and/or creative.”
ALEXI HALLContent Coordinator - Lazer
”“With our new groundbreaking technology, we knew we had gold in our hands. We ‘just’ needed the right brand name, brand ID, communication strategy & messaging. For this we turned to the Brandwave team, who clearly guided us and came up with the KinetiCore name and strategy.
The recognisability, the clear and simple messaging and the communication based on four pillars helped us big time to create impact and make the introduction of the KinetiCore technology and products to a huge success.”
MIKE SMINKDirector SHIMANO Own Brands
