Turning a Parking Ticket Into a Bike Purchase

Via NYC livable streets all-star Dani Simons, whose new Tumblr you really ought to be following, comes this marketing innovation from Swedish ad agency Goss and sports good company Sportspec. The flyer next to the parking ticket can be traded in for a discount on a Sportspec bike purchase.

Writes Simons:

A clever and opportunistic campaign. It takes advantage of the moment when car ownership seems like the biggest pain in the rear (a parking ticket, again!); to offer a discount on the purchase of a bike. Bike ownership is positioned as a release and freedom from the burden that cars represent. If you enlarge the ad, it claims the campaign had high conversion rate for bike sales, especially expensive bikes. I don’t see why this couldn’t work for less expensive bikes, or membership in bike organizations. (Unless your city has strict rules about not putting stuff on people’s windshields, and to be honest, those rules seem seldom enforced.)

Goss says that one in seven flyers have been redeemed as part of this campaign, which has been in effect since 2008 in central Gothenburg, Sweden. Sportspec has sold 1,000 bikes through these coupons.

Could a similar campaign work with New York’s notoriously agitated curbside parkers? Probably not for this guy, but perhaps one in seven are primed for a less aggravating mode of transport.