Background & Context

Danes love their bikes. Copenhagen is the world’s most cycle-friendly city(World Economic Forum). The city has over 675,000 bicycles and just 120,000 cars, meaning bikes outnumber cars by more than five-to-one, almost one third(29%) of all journeys across Copenhagen made by bike.

One problem;helmets have never become as popular as cycling itself. Around 45% of casualties in Copenhagen met their end on a bike and only 47% of cyclists wears a helmet. The task is to get cyclists in cities age 25-55, primarily men, to wear a helmet.

Creative Challenge

Why such apprehension towards putting on a helmet, when the safety-benefits of wearing one are so painfully obvious? In short: there is not one good excuse for not wearing a helmet –but there is a very long list of poor ones. Data and insights indicated that most excuses have to do with vanity and a general tendency to think “It won’t happen to me, I am a responsible cyclist.” This confidence is a result of our culture. The Danes are thought traffic safety and biking from a very early age. Brilliant! but it has also strengthened our confidence to a point of arrogance when having the message retold as an adult – leaving barriers up and safety and helmet as low interest topics. So, simply being the Danish Road Safety Council challenges attention among the adult Danes. We needed to find a new way to engage people in a well-known message.

Solution

The campaign poked gentle fun at those too vain to wear a helmet, by hanging all their poor excuses out to dry. And what better group to do this with, than someone who wore their helmets with pride? The Vikings.

The film takes place in a Viking village - year 893, at party that is due to set sail to England. Before setting off, the Viking leader; Svend, announces to his co-Viking Hjalmar and the rest of his Viking army, that he won’t be needing his helmet because it is too itchy, wrecks his hair and that he is a safe rider of horses, never falls off. Thus, exposing all the common justifications cyclists use as excuses to not wear a helmet. Even though the setting is different, the excuses remain the same today – and with this film, it becomes evident for viewers just how bizarre these excuses really sound.

Execution

We approach activation from four angles:

1.An idea that can travel between people - Calling for social media(Facebook + YouTube), PR, collaborations(National Museum of Denmark) and stalkholders(Danish Minister of Traffic).

2.A broad target group - Broad reach with combination of TV and digital TV.

3.In situation - The importance of catching the target group on their bike - adding OOH in cities(billboards and busses) to the mix.

4.Buying situation – Collaboration with ABUS bike-shops.

Campaign went live June7th 2021 with a frontload of the hero film (full version) on social media, giving people a chance to know the universe.