The Life-Sized City Blog: How NOT to Promote Cycling


In the previous post we showed a fine Hungarian advert that promotes cycling. The Austin Bike Blog posted an advert that is running in the US during the Olympics and which ran during the Tour de France. It's for an American auto parts company called Autozone. As Elliot at Austin Bike Blog says: In the AutoZone ad, a poor kid on a bike repairs an old clunker by the side of the road using parts for AutoZone. (I imagine he is paying for it with his minimum wage job with no health insurance at Walmart.) At the end he says,

“It basically took me the whole summer. And I don’t know how many times I need to go to AutoZone, but at least now when I go, it’s not on my bike.”

Yes, this poor schmuck has traded a low cost, self sufficient, health and wealth building form of transportation for a future of endless debt and a growing waist line (assuming that car will make it more than 500 miles.) Way to go, Autozone!""

What a difference between the two adverts.


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