industries

Giant Bikes’ Random Acts of Bikeness

By Tom Gierasimczuk /

Random Acts of Bikeness | BCBusiness

Tasked with developing a memorable social media campaign for client Giant Bikes—and giving away free bikes in a creative way—North Vancouver-based digital agency Thought Shop went equal parts retro and feel-good

Starting this week until Aug. 31, depending on your age, you may find yourself cycling into a scene from TJ Hooker, Simon and Simon, or—if you’re a child of the early ’90s music scene—the Beastie Boys’ Sabotage video.

Don’t be alarmed and rest assured that there’s a very good chance you’ll leave the scene with a new Giant bike. The campaign, titled Random Acts of Bikeness (a riff off of the Random Acts of Kindness movement), was crafted for Giant by digital agency Thought Shop as a way to develop the B.C.-based company’s social resonance and community advocacy. 

“Combining the motives of Robin Hood with the style of CHiPs,” according to agency partner Lianne Kerr, dressed up Giant field crews will be popping up across Canada—and specifically Vancouver and Whistler—on trails, at festivals, bike parks and on city streets to look for rusty, neglected rides to exchange for brand new Giant models.

“Each Random Acts of Bikeness official will submit all their video and photographs to Giant who’ll tweet and Facebook some of the content as they see fit,” says Kerr, noting that the giveaways will create content “to hit multiple online channels all summer—it could be a photo of the yet-to-be-disclosed location where they’re sitting and waiting for someone perfect to ride by or a video of the happy winner ditching their old bike and heading off into the sunset on their new Giant.”   

In addition to finding people riding beaters incidentally, the campaign also prompts people to join online to get involved and to qualify for a free bike draw. “People who wish to participate will be encouraged to follow @GiantCan, or like them on Facebook to get news and hints as to where and when the next RAB giveaway might take place,” says Kerr. “People can also cruise into the store and just say ‘random acts of bikeness’ and the store staff will enter them into the draw. So, online is a big push but we wanted to make sure there was an in-store options as well.” Watch the launch video here:

Random Acts of Bikeness from Giant Bicycles Canada on Vimeo.