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Huffy Bikes: Adorable Kids complain like adults to sell adults on a kid’s style bike — #grownupproblems

Press: A social video and sweepstakes campaign, with TV branding support, offers kids’ solutions to grown-ups’ problems. The campaign is for Huffy Bikes and the solutions—whether for paying taxes, dieting, doing laundry or navigating a maze of office cubicles—all have two wheels and a handlebar. The work is by advertising agency Brunner, Pittsburgh.

Inexpensive bikes are, according to The Wall Street Journal, the fastest growing segment of the otherwise near-flat bike category
wsj.com/articles/easy-bikes-no-spandex-required-1433777624
and typically they are purchased not for commuting or racing, but for casual recreation. The
campaign features the $119 Cranbrook Cruiser, and its brief is, “Stressed adults need a bike ride.”

In one introductory: 60 and six more: 15s, 12-year-old Huffy spokeskid Grace Elias and others of her generation enact adults’ Tweets hastagged #grownupproblems. The first, breaking on Tax Day, has a young girl up late at a paper-strewn desk reading, “It’s Monday night, and I have a hot date. With Uncle Sam.” Cut to Grace, outdoors in a sunny yard, showing off a bike: “There’s no tax on riding this sweet cruiser. Just sayin’.”

The spots’ close is a call to “submit your #grownupproblems for a chance to win,” and links, via Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Huffy.com, to a sweepstakes. Entries will in turn become new campaign fodder, with solutions to the new problems shared over Huffy’s owned Twitter and Instagram channels (“Worst part of doing laundry is trying to match the socks”; “Didn’t you hear? Mismatched socks is the latest trend”?). Entrants may win one of 47 Huffy Cruisers awarded daily April 15 though May 31, or the June 1 Grand prize, adult and kid’s bikes for a family of 4. Entry details will be at Huffy.com/Sweeps (live as of April 15).

A branding TV: 30, with spokeskid Grace, will run on 14 mom-focused networks, such as Bravo, E!, Lifetime, BET, Hallmark, Oxygen. Online media for the: 60 preroll and six: 15s is an 11.8 MM impression buy, via YuMe, Tremor, BrightRoll, targeting moms who are 30 – 49, working, active, pragmatists, pleasure-seeking and Walmart, Target or Kmart shoppers. There will also be paid Facebook, Twitter and Instagram advertising.

Creative Credits:
Advertising Agency: Brunner, Pittsburgh, USA
CCO: Rob Schapiro
CD: Dave Vissat
ACD: Maria Gualtieri Bowers
CW: Ashley Cagle Conrad
Editor/Animator: Jason Mileto
Agency Producer: Matt Haritan
Group Account Director: Jake Bendel
Sr. Account Manager: Nate Wachter
Dir. Social Media: George Potts
Assoc. Dir. Social Media: Caroline Bovalino
Media Director: Bill Zeigler
Media Planner/Buyer: Rebecca Pittman
Business Affairs Manager: Kelly Nesbitt
Project Manager: Amanda Rea
Dir. Public Relations: Steve Radick

Production Co.: Fried Okra Entertainment, Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Dir.: Ernie Mosteller
D.P., online videos: Frank Martin
D.P., TV: Francisco Aliwalas
Producer: Rich Rosenfeld

Post: Animal, Pittsburgh
Colorist: Allan Stallard

Sound: Market Street Sound, Pittsburgh
Engineer: Rob Deaner