The parent company, Huck Cycles, sells motorbikes like the one above for thousands of dollars. Ride Huck Cycles was later founded to rent the same motorbikes for $70 a day. The plan was to start rental services in Wrightsville before expanding into Charlotte, NC.
Where I Came In
I was hired very early on in the inception of Ride Huck. The company’s website still had placeholder text in Latin, my Mom and I were among the Instagram’s first followers, and there were no previous marketing or advertising plans.
My Role
I was basically a full-service advertising agency as an intern. Research –> Strategy –> Creative. I was tasked with creating and executing the advertising campaign in Wrightsville, analyzing and refining it, and then launching a new initiative in Charlotte.
The Research
Analyzing Existing Data
The parent company, Huck Cycles, provided some demographic data on their past buyers. This gave me a loose idea of a potential target market. The problem? The type of person who buys a multi-thousand dollar motorbike is much different than the type of person who rents one for a couple days.
Looking At The Market
I researched competitors and substitutes in Wrightsville, NC. I also looked into the community’s population and tourism industry to get a better understanding of the target population.
Putting It Together: The Target Personas
Single Men In The Area
I decided to target single men based on the demographic data from Huck Cycles heavily skewing towards single male customers. I did not know a lot at this time because of limited research resources, so it was a safe bet to target a group that has shown the most interest in the motorbikes.
Young Childless Couples on Vacation
I decided to target young childless couples because they would likely be interested in the adventurous benefits of the motorbikes. I also knew golf carts would be a more practical and appealing option for bigger families.
Putting It Together: The Advertising Channels
Local Radio + Pandora
Driving into town excited for vacation? Relaxing on the beach with some music? Lounging at the house after a long day? This seemed like a cost-efficient way to reach people during an actionable time.
Instagram
The ability to target people based on location, age, gender, and interests was extremely useful. It was also a great platform to raise brand awareness while on a budget, communicate directly with the target market, and collaborate with local businesses.
Google Ads
A helpful boost to my SEO efforts, this channel was chosen to drive more traffic to the company website. Cost efficiency, specific targeting, and ease of tracking were also key considerations.
Posters
Wrightsville is a tourist town during the summer. Posters in key places around town was a great option to ensure short-term visitors would be exposed to the brand. Promo codes were included on these posters to gather data on sale generation.
Putting It Together: The Strategy
The Message
Based on my consumer research, product research, market research, and competitive analysis, I decided to position the bikes as an adventurous transportation option.
Sample Get/Who/To/By
Get: Young men and childless couples Who: Are on vacation and looking to have a good time To: Think of a Huck Cycle as their chance to cut loose By: Promoting the bikes as an adventurous experience capable of upgrading their vacation
Additional Considerations
Limited research made me wary that I had not picked the optimal strategy. I also considered qualities such as eco-friendly, ease of parking, travel convenience, and customer service. I included advertisements within the first campaign geared towards each of these messages. The idea was to monitor their effectiveness and potentially give these insights a stronger voice moving forward.
Launching The First Campaign
Unleash The Ads!
Advertisements across all of the channels were launched with the goal of not just increasing, but creating brand awareness.
My Creative Work
I wrote the copy for the poster, radio, Google, and social media advertisements. I also conducted keyword research and wrote copy for the website geared towards search engine optimization.
Partnerships
I formed several collaborations with local businesses who shared our target market. Working with them was also the quickest way to gain Instagram followers and establish brand authority.
Monitoring The First Campaign
Analyzing The First Campaign
The Positives
The advertisements on Google Ads and Instagram were economical and productive. The advertisements on Google drove more traffic to the company’s website while the Instagram ads drastically increased the number of account followers.
The Negatives
The radio advertisements did not perform well based on CPC and CTR. Since it shared the same message of adventurousness, I concluded that the issue was with the channel itself. Granted, the CPC and CTR may have been lower because of the nature of the channel. People may have been preoccupied while listening to the ad and acted on the information later.
What I Learned
The Instagram ads that had a more raw, “badass” portrayal of the bikes performed much better than posts mentioning sustainability. This confirmed my insight that this quality of the bikes would have the greatest effect on consumers. I also learned that I should devote more of the budget to a couple of channels instead of stretching the limited money across several channels.
Refining the Campaign For Charlotte
Changes To The Channels
I eliminated radio advertisements based on the previous campaign and a more saturated/busier market in Charlotte. I also eliminated the use of posters for the same reasons. The amount of posters required to create several impressions is astronomically higher in Charlotte than in the small coastal town of Wrightsville.
Changes To The Messaging
I kept the core strategy the same: promote the adventurousness and boldness of the motorbikes. I also significantly decreased mentions of sustainability. This message’s ineffectiveness made sense in hindsight. Sustainability may appeal more to a consumer considering purchasing the bike compared to someone considering a daily rental.
New Opportunities
Planning a campaign in the city where I was located opened up huge opportunities. I was able to introduce pop-up events into the campaign to showcase the bikes in person.
Adjusting To A Different Market
I took the budget space from the radio and poster advertisements and devoted it to pop-up events and giveaways. These channels were better suited for a busier market with more competitors. There was also some brand awareness already established in Charlotte, which increased the chances of people stopping to look at the bikes.
Launching The Second Campaign
Instagram + Google Ads
I opened the geographic targeting to include Charlotte but kept the messaging consistent. I did post more photos and videos of the bikes in recognizable locations around Charlotte.
Pop-Ups
I arranged several pop-up events with local businesses that shared a similar customer base. I was able to offer demo rides and collect more consumer research via on-site surveys. The information from these surveys led to a new strategy for the business…
A New Secondary Strategy
I found that many people had heard of Huck Cycles, and some were already considering purchasing one. I also discovered that these people were hesitant to spend so much money on an unfamiliar form of transportation. I capitalized on this insight by positioning the rental service as a tryout for a real purchase. Considering buying a Huck but not sure it’s worth it? See for yourself with a daily rental!
The Greatest Success
The demo rides in Charlotte proved to be the X factor in driving website traffic, social media followers, and sales. I had correctly judged that the most appealing benefit from the bikes was the sense of adventure. The demo rides were the best possible way to get this point across because they got to experience it themselves.
Challenges
Stranded In Charlotte
A week into my internship, the employee based in Wrightsville left the company. This left me without someone to run pop-up events, hang posters, and gather primary research. I had to switch the initial messaging from sales generation to brand awareness. I also made several day trips from Charlotte to Wrightsville to hang posters and observe the community.
Building Brand Awareness Against The Clock
I faced a unique challenge of creating brand awareness in a tourist town. I needed to introduce people to the brand, grab their attention, and motivate them to buy all before their vacations ended. I tried to answer this problem by using “limited time” promo codes to drive sales.
What I Learned
Soft Skills
I worked largely on my own, with weekly discussions with the CEO. I developed numerous soft skills such as self-discipline, problem solving, accountability, and perseverance. I also learned the importance of curiosity, humility, and flexibility.
Marketing + Advertising
This experience was a great opportunity to learn a wide range of advertising and marketing functions through trial and error. I learned a lot about how to craft an effective campaign strategy, establish a successful brand personality, set and reach a target audience, produce on-strategy content, and data analysis.
Recommendation
The following are the words of the CEO, Steve Amedio:
Many entrepreneurs like myself have a similar question regarding internships. “What makes for a productive internship.” It really could be expressed more pointedly as a problem statement. “How in the world can I make meaningful use of a young adult/student intern without it destroying my team’s productivity.”
Unfortunately the answer is usually heavily weighted towards the business’ ability to define meaningful work, at a discrete task level and dedicate a manager in the organization to the program. This means hyper efficient onboarding, multiple meetings a day and close scrutiny of the end product at each step in the process/project for the duration of the internship.
In steps Ben Deschamps.
Ben worked for me for several months as an intern. And I could say a lot of wonderful things about Ben. He is a pleasure to have around the office. But what made Ben a significant standout from other interns was his exceptional intellectual curiosity. Ben received no formal onboarding, was asked to work across a diverse portfolio of companies including tech, manufacturing and non-profit. He did so with limited direction. In fact, we simply needed to express strategic objectives for a particular project and simple guardrails such as time to complete and the nature of the output. This minimal direction was all Ben needed to create important, insightful and impactful results. He contributed broadly to sales and marketing problem sets, addressing the full marketing and sales lifecycle. He implemented his plans effectively and within budget parameters. Ben thought critically about the stated objectives to ensure his work could be measured for its real impact. As it turns out, Ben wasn’t just an intern. He was a critical thinker with his own point of view and highly productive member of our team. I hope he learned something during his time with us, because we definitely learned a few things from Ben!
