“It’s fun putting together advertising directed at more of the general public. I just try to put myself in their place and think of a message that might crack through.
River City Bicycles owner Dave Guettler
If you watch local network television, you might be surprised to see a commercial for River City Bicycles. It’s not typical for a local bike shop to produce a TV ad, but River City’s Dave Guettler, is not a typical bike shop owner.
Guettler is known for his creative ad campaigns. Back in March, BikePortland contributor Carl Larson wrote that his ads go “beyond the ordinary”.
This is Guettler’s second TV ad (watch it below) and it features a stressed-out, antacid-popping man, whose sweating in a hot car, stuck in gridlock traffic on an empty tank of gas. It then pans away to a woman on a bike on a highway overpass. She shakes her head at the sight of the gridlock below and then pedals serenely away.
Guettler told me his goal with these ads is to share a “meaningful message” and that it’s directed at more of the general public. He can’t get himself to do the “typical product-oriented advertising”. “That stuff drives me crazy when I see it” he says, “and I assume other people feel the same way. I just try to put myself in their place and think of a message that might crack through.”
Here’s the ad. Do you think it “cracks through”?
[*Disclaimer: River City Bicycles is an advertiser on BikePortland.org but that had no bearing on my decision to publish this story.]