Case Study: Bike Moments

Find out how Forster Communications helped raise the profile of road safety charity The Institute of Advanced Motorists by creating a series of tongue-in-cheek Facebook and Twitter “Bike Moments”.

Campaign: Bike Moments
Client: Institute of Advanced Motorists
PR Team: Forster Communications
Timing: July – September 2015
Budget: £14,000

Overview

The Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) is the UK’s leading independent road safety charity. Forster Communications was selected by IAM to develop a social media campaign to raise awareness and increase sign-ups to its free rider checks and safety courses amongst the motorcycle community. The win followed the success of a similar digital and online PR campaign for IAM, implemented by Forster in 2014.

Objectives

The aim of the eight week campaign was to:

• Increase IAM’s social media engagement with riders aged 40+.
• Raise awareness for the organisation.
• Drive people to the IAM website.
• Drive 330 signups to the IAM free riding tasters amongst the target audience.

Strategy

The campaign is the second project Forster Communications has worked on for IAM. Forster developed an engaging, tongue-in-cheek Facebook and Twitter campaign entitled Bike Moments, playing on audience insights around motorcyclists’ unique relationship with their bikes.

As part of the campaign, Forster created a series of images showcasing key life moments where the bike is the highlight rather than the special event.

This was supported by additional content including polls, competitions, safety tips and inspirational quotes. The campaign was seeded through biker Facebook groups, existing and potential partners and ambassadors, a campaign Facebook page as well as IAM’s existing Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn channels.

George Ames, head of Forster’s activation practice, said: “Selling safety can be tough. We knew that we’d need to find the ingredient the audience would identify with to get people to contemplate action. The humorous take on the relationship riders have with their motorbikes did just this and we’re delighted with what the campaign has achieved for IAM.”

Results

The Bike Moments content resulted in 3,843 visits to the landing page, with a conversion rate of 9.4% to signing up to a free riding sessions. The campaign exceeded its target by 16%, with 383 sign-ups for the IAM’s free tasters.

The campaign resulted in over 17,000 engagements on Facebook and Twitter, with the hashtag used almost 500 times by 262 individual users. The campaign attracted over 860 new followers on Facebook and Twitter. Key influencers also engaged with the campaign including Honda British Superbike star Jenny Tinmouth, the government road safety initiative THINK!, the Scottish Government, the Motorcycling Industry Association, The National Motorcycle Museum and female motorcycle organisation Women on Wheels.

Slavina Dimitrova, IAM’s social media executive who implemented the campaign, said: “The Bike Moments campaign was the IAM’s largest ever promotion giving motorcyclists the opportunity to get a taste of advanced riding for free. It was a social media led project building a bridge between rider safety and bikers’ emotional connection with their motorcycles.

“Bike Moments has been a huge success and Forster’s strategic and creative support has been instrumental in it. In just two months the campaign exceeded what was a three month target for free taster sign-ups by 16%, with registrations coming through even after the end of the promotion.”