Kadisco: Cycling, Marketing, Sponsorship, Social Media

Tour de France team & sponsor video battle!

Posted on 22. Jul, 2009 by Josh in Bike Racing, Bike industry, New Media, Sponsors

Updated Tuesday, July 28: The response rate was more of a drip than a flood, but the results are in. People really liked Cervélo’s Beyond The Peloton and were pretty indifferent towards the rest of the videos. (However, it’s important to note that the sample size was too small to be statistically significant.) In my view, the Cervélo series is clearly the highest quality work in this field of but the big question mark is its timeliness – I wrote this blog post in the middle of the Tour and the most recent episode on Bartape.net was Paris-Roubaix, which took place 3 months earlier. If I run a survey like this again, I’ll expand the ratings to include timing, distribution, and other factors that go into a successful video series. Regardless, congratulations to the folks at Cervélo!

Especially during the Tour, teams and sponsors are generating some interesting documentary-style video coverage of pro cycling. But who’s got the best content? Let’s figure it out! I’ve posted sample videos below from five well known teams and brands. Watch them – or better yet, use the links to check out the full series – and complete the survey below to give each a rating. Then vote for your favorite. Voting will be open until the end of the Tour and I’ll post the results next week. Please leave comments (keep it clean, of course), share this page, and email me if you know of any other videos that I should add to this list!

Remember that each of these is just one video out of a series…

I Am Specialized

Series: http://www.iamspecialized.com

Beyond The Peloton (Cervélo)

Series: http://www.bartape.net
(Thanks to hupthur for this link to Cervelo TestTeam on Vimeo.)

Beyond The Peloton: five – FLANDERS from Cervelo TestTeam on Vimeo.

Document: Trek. Unscripted.

Series: http://www.trekbikes.com/us/en/trek_life/video/

Taking The Lead (Saxo Bank)

Series: http://www.saxobanktakingthelead.com/
(Sorry for the auto-play. If the video doesn’t show up, try switching to full-screen mode and then switch back.)

Garmin-Slipstream

Series: http://vimeo.com/user1942336/videos/

Now for the survey…

[SURVEYS 3]

Selection criteria

1. Must be an ongoing series, not a random one-off video.
2. Team or sponsor must hold the copyrights.
3. Full videos must be available online. No trailers.
4. Videos must be at least somewhat edited and decent quality. No camera-phones.
5. Content must feel like a “documentary” and not a “commercial” (i.e. not like this).
6. Must be more of a video series and less of a blogging campaign like Lance’s videos LIVESTRONG.com or The Road Diaries that I helped launch for SRAM.

Disclosure: I have worked with some of these companies, but not on any of these projects. See my portfolio for details.

Got questions? Leave a comment and I’ll respond.