Brompton, famed for its industry leading folding bike, unveils first ever global brand campaign, developed in partnership with strategic and creative company ScienceMagic
25th May 2023 – Brompton, famous for its iconic folding bike, has today unveiled its first global brand campaign, “ab ra ca dab ra”, which celebrates the transformative freedom created by its “magical engineering”.
The campaign was developed in partnership with ScienceMagic, following its appointment as the brand’s lead global strategic and creative agency earlier this year.
ScienceMagic has partnered with Brompton to develop a new creative campaign in order to connect the brand with a global audience of Urban Outsiders – people with an urban mindset living and exploring the city outside. The campaign aims to drive growth and brand awareness, as well as reframing perceptions and breaking down barriers to purchase, and inspiring more people to get on a bike.
The new campaign is underpinned by the idea of the transformative freedom created by Brompton’s “magical engineering”, honouring the brand’s founder Andrew Ritchie, whose original brief to himself was to design a “magic carpet” that would make travelling across London easier for all.
Born from this original ambition, ScienceMagic landed on the creative concept of “ab ra ca dab ra” – a celebration of the magical way in which the Brompton bike can solve big and small challenges, but also using the five syllables of the phrase to reflect the five moves of folding and unfolding a Brompton bike.
The campaign makes the product the hero, with a series of motion assets documenting the bike folding and unfolding. Adding a human character to a product steeped in engineering precision, the work showcases the bike unfolding and folding in its full sequence. Almost displayed as a dance that uses an aura-led colour palette, playful animation of the ‘moves’ of the bike and bringing it to life with a sound designed ‘voice’ – the typography of “ab ra ca dab ra” animates matching the style of each bike move to complement the elevated detail of the Brompton.
The media activations have been developed with globally consistent but locally relevant executions for each market, to tackle specific issues audiences face in their cities – whether that’s a lack of space in New York or too much congestion in Beijing. Dynamic Creative Optimisation will be deployed to ensure that campaign messaging is relevant and resonates through the executions’placement at locations of major disruption for commuters.
Shelly Pearce, Global Brand Director, Brompton, said: “The magic of this campaign is it’s rooted in our founder, Andrew Ritchie’s original idea behind the Brompton; to make a bike that you could fold up and almost put in your pocket, like a magic carpet for the city. “ab ra ca dab ra” brings this to life whilst putting our product front and centre but with an added layer of warmth and humanity. Each execution is as beautifully crafted as our bikes, reflecting the precision engineering that goes into every Brompton.”
To develop the new platform, Gabriela Scardaccione, Chief Magic Officer at ScienceMagic, applied a uniquely collaborative creative process, bringing together a community-led collective of unconventional creative partners early on in the project to dig deep into the Brompton brand and get a flavour for how the work could start to come to life.
Gabriela Scardaccione, Chief Magic Officer, ScienceMagic, said: “We have been truly inspired by Brompton, not only because they are a brand that matters in the world, but also because partnering with them has enabled us to put into practice something we truly believe: the power of people contributing to an idea together.
“We had the joy of working with some of the most talented people in this industry. Tony Davidson, Kim Papworth, Daniel Eatock, Dave Dye; along with Art Practice, Studio Blackburn and String and Tins sat down to create, develop and make from the very beginning, as one solid team.
“Brompton has been an incredible client, trusting this way of working that allowed us to move more seamlessly from our concept into the final work.”
The launch comes as the brand looks to encourage the continued increase in Brompton users since the pandemic, as well as pursue its sustainability agenda for a better world.
Havas Market will be handling the media planning and buying for the brand campaign having been appointed by Brompton as its lead agency in January this year. The campaign will activate across out-of-home, connected video-on-demand, social, digital and retail in key growth territories including the UK, US, Germany and France. The media strategy aims to grow brand awareness and consideration, and drive sales of the latest product lines.
Pedro Ramos, Head of eCommerce, Havas Media, said: “Our media strategy will build from the ‘Magical Engineering’ foundations of the brand campaign platform through its activations, including targeting commuters through OOH and creating a community around the brand through engaging social, while retail channels allow customers to experience the products in person. The best part was interacting with the factory workers and learning about the unique features that each Brompton bike has, which allowed us to truly understand the world of Brompton to inform our media strategy.”
Founded in London in 1975, Brompton is one of the UK’s largest bicycle manufacturers and produces folding bikes for more than 47 countries, with 80% of its sales outside of the UK and nearly 20% online. The business employs more than 750 people with annual revenues and grew annual revenue by 25% to £76.1m in its 2021 fiscal year.
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