If your bike loved you back, would you ride it more often?

The Edmonton Bicycle Commuters Society (EBC) is planting just such thoughts into commuters’ heads with a sassy new campaign designed to get people thinking about bikes anew. The EBC is an urban cycling advocate group, repair shop, educational resource and used bike retailer. The goal of the campaign is to increase ridership and awareness of the EBC’s activities.

On their first campaign date together, the EBC worked with DDB Canada’s Edmonton office on the creative and media plan, while the EBC handled the media buy internally. The media strategy includes print (featuring taglines such as ‘You bring the chain, I’ll bring the oil’), radio, wild postings, a microsite and ‘guerrilla-stunt bikes’ set up in different locations around the city as travelling billboards, sporting phrases such as ‘My last relationship was a disaster.’

The media drive interested parties to Dingding.ca, where they can ‘start a two-wheeled love affair.’ Modelled after an online dating site, the landing page asks visitors to indicate whether they are male or female, and whether they are looking for a short-term or long-term relationship. MiC signed in and was matched with a medium-sized, mint-coloured Peugeot named Minty, which is in ‘open-minded’ condition and is, admittedly, a cheap date.

‘We’re reaching out to people who haven’t adopted cycling into their lives and we’re doing so in a way that’s turning heads,’ says Anna Vesala, executive director, Edmonton Bicycle Commuters.

The campaign is set to run through the fall months.