Watching Giant’s latest sponsored post is a jarring experience. It feels like missing a gear on a steep hill. You expect power but all that’s delivered is crunching metal. For an advert that is desperate to communicate innovation, it feels stuck in the past for a number of reasons (you can watch the video here).
Firstly, there’s the overall production. It looks great — that’s fine — but the swooping movie aesthetic combined with the all-American voiceover feels incredibly clichéd. Audiences are so well versed in postmodern, intertextual referencing that I’m left waiting for the kicker — it can’t be this simplistic, can it? — but there’s no irony, it just ends (or have I been watching too many Tide Superbowl adverts?).
This one-dimensional simplicity is carried into the overall message. The voiceover tells us: “Racing, testing, pushing limits. These are the same reasons you ride, to feel the rush, to be faster, to win.” There are two issues here. Firstly, the language is incredibly prescriptive in a space where brands (see Nike’s Find Your Greatness) have been talking about creating your own version of success for a decade now. Secondly this version of competition-based success feels as outdated as the way it’s presented.
Though this model is not aimed at, for example, the bikepacking market, it completely ignores some of the fastest growing areas of popularity in cycling. Cycling is about personal adventure. It’s a strange sport where, unlike running, it’s unlikely a sudden impact injury will stop you, rather you will totally empty your physical or mental capabilities. The battle is about which comes first. Winning is still winning but, more than ever — especially for a sport that (fingers crossed) has just left an era of institutional doping — how you do it is as, if not more, important.
This brings us finally to the historical context. One of the main pillars this advert stands on is the bike’s “DNA” as part of the successful Rabobank, ONCE, T-Mobile and Sunweb teams. Only one of these organisations (Sunweb, the most recent) hasn’t been involved in a major doping scandal. In fact, using the term “DNA” only helps to make this connection with human bodies and nefarious biology. They could only do one worse by saying it’s “in our blood.” The advert’s apparent “win at all costs” obsession with perfection almost excuses this.
What’s sad is that if we look at Giant’s broader social media presence they are actually doing a much better job of speaking to a more rounded interpretation of what’s important to cyclists. More than ever, modern, inclusive cycling is about stories of your own human potential — whatever that might mean for you or your gran — not superhuman perfection. This idea has even infiltrated the pro peloton, with teams such as EF Education First expanding their race calendar or the Thereabouts films. The blind pursuit of perfection is exactly what brought the drugs in and caused the fans to leave.
There may be an audience for this, but the advert feels out of step with a wider sports landscape. It closes with the tagline “Ride unleashed.” As anyone who owns a pet or has watched Pulp Fiction knows, the two things that tend to get leashed are dogs and gimps. This is a very narrow market for Giant to be going after.
