Showcasing The UK's Biggest New Sportive
The Brief
Velo Essex is the UK’s biggest new festival of cycling, including a showpiece 16,000 rider 100-mile mass participation sportive through the rolling countryside of rural Essex: the very same roads the Tour de France came through in 2014.
We were approached by the Velo Essex team to build awareness of the new event and generate pre-registrations before the official launch.
What We Did
To make the new event as relatable as possible to road cyclists we wanted to take on the 100-mile route ourselves and create a series of informative and accessible content to help prospects conquer the marathon equivalent for cyclists.
Teaming up with two of the UK’s most popular cycling influencers - Keira McVitty (@ginger_biskwit) and Chris Hall (@chrishallrides) - we storyboarded and produced a showpiece video titled ‘How to ride 100 miles’ providing helpful information and tips to help every cyclist through their first 100-mile ride, from pacing to nutrition and tactics. Shot on location in Essex, the video also aimed to showcase some of the route’s highlights, including Hylands House, Finchingfield and the anciet town of Saffron Waldron.
On top of the main event video, we produced a series of immersive and interactive Instagram Stories titled ‘A quick guide to cycling’s best new sportive: And 5 reasons why you have to ride it.’ The Stories were designed to provide a short, easy to digest introduction to the event and encourage registrations using the ‘swipe up’ functionality on Instagram.
The content was published on the Cycling Pulse Facebook page (413,000 followers), Instagram account (168,000 followers) and YouTube channel (26,000 subscribers). The main event video was also used by Velo Essex for their own purposes and published on the event video website for helpful training information for the 16,000 riders.