The start of July saw OVO Energy, the title sponsor of the OVO Energy Women’s Tour, roll out a campaign promoting the series’ Night Ride Event in London.
The activation is spearheaded by a video which features cyclists oedalling through the city streets on a tour of London’s iconic landmarks.
This spot launches the first half of July series of Night Rides which take place across the UK – in London, Manchester, Bristol and Glasgow and its twin objectives are to address the barriers to cycling participation that women face and to inspire women to take up cycling as a low carbon mode of transport.
Another strahd of the activation programme saw OVO Energy partner with BrightSide Bike Lights in order to offer all customers exclusive discounts on products that help make cyclists more visible and thus allay cyclists’ safety concerns.
Comment:
This campaign was created after British Cycling research showed that men currently account for 69% of the UK’s total cycling population and that it is issues such as confidence, safety, and cycling infrastructure concerns which are the key factors that deterring greater female participation.
Indeed, 63% of the women interviewed said that current infrastructure models do not make them feel safe, while 66% said the same about driver behaviour.
Thhe Ovo activation also followed hot on the heel of a new women’s cycling strand of Sport England’s ongoing and award winning ‘This Girl Can’ campaign
This initiative launched on 25 June as a joint British Cycling and Sport England cycling-specific campaign designed to highlight the recreational, women-only bike ride programme – HSBC UK Breeze – which has hundreds of free rides up and down the UK.
It also followed on from a new survey released by This Girl Can which showed that six in 10 mums feel guilty about taking time to exercise and that mothers have a greater impact on their children’s future activity levels and also to set an example by prioritising exercise in their own lives.
The campaign brings together the expertise of both organisations as they attempt to build on the continuing work being done to narrow cycling’s historic gender participation gap and to highlight this fantastic activity option for women with creative driving viewers to the online hub at letsride.co.uk/thisgirlcan
Both campaigns launched as cycling interest spikes in the week before the start of the 2019 Tour De France and the ‘often derided’ women’s one day La Course mirror event.
Surely Tour owner/organiser Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO) will launch a full scale Women’s version of cycling’s greatest race soon?
Surely?
Links:
OVO Energy
https://www.youtube.com/user/OvoEnergyTV
https://www.facebook.com/ovoenergy
https://twitter.com/account/access
https://www.linkedin.com/company/ovo-energy
https://www.instagram.com/ovoenergy/
Women’s Tour
https://www.facebook.com/thewomenstour
https://twitter.com/thewomenstour
https://www.instagram.com/thewomenstour/
https://www.youtube.com/user/TheTourCycling
BrightSide Bike Lights
British Cycling
https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/
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