Bearded messengers. Hipsters. Laid-back contraption kings. The world of ‘fixies’ (fixed wheel bikes) is a hotchpotch of two-wheeled clans. We had to introduce Levi’s Commuter, a relatively unknown range of bike wear designed specifically for cyclists, to this influential two-wheeled subculture and encourage them to respond to Levi's – a brand they don't normally associate with.

We discovered that fixie riders compete in Alleycat races, and the contestants identify themselves with ‘spoke cards’ – designer postcards lodged in the spokes of their wheels – which they retain as status symbols. So we turned this into a unique media placement to get our cyclists’ attention. We fashioned 6,000 of our own spoke cards, and placed them in the spokes of fixies across three European cities notorious for their cycling culture: Amsterdam, Paris and London.

By speaking their language through the cultural device of spoke cards we stepped directly into their world. Each of the 6,000 outdoor placements introduced the Commuter range to cyclists, directed them to the Levi’s® site, and incentivised them to tweet a picture that expressed their passion for cycling with #weride.

The results proved that the relevancy of the creative execution and bespoke media placement paid off: the campaign generated a 23% response, the highest response rate to date for any Levi’s acquisition mailing.

Commuter also became a topic of conversation on Twitter, reaching over 900,000 people in Europe through the combination of entries and tweets about the #weride promotion. The gallery of bike images on the Commuter product page received 39,638 unique visits (that’s six times the number of cyclists initially targeted through the spoke card).