Actually, I think their choice of model and setting was spot on.

1) This is how advertising works, you imply how much better things might be in some way for the viewer if they tried your product. You play off of what they want. In this case, the video is saying that you can be successful, confident, happy, handsome, and generally feel good.

2)The demographic displayed here isn't the same one that you usually find riding bikes. Generally fancy cars are pitched to the wealthy and successful as a symbol of status, which in turn results in more people desiring cars; because the wealthy/famous/successful people have them. I think it's a wonderful idea to aim this superior form of transportation at them instead.

Yes, biking is for everyone, this ad doesn't imply otherwise. What it also doesn't do is focus on how great for the environment biking is, how much money it saves you, or any of the practical problems. It shouldn't, nor should anything video promoting biking as an activity for everyone. That's a terrible way to sell a product to anything but a small minority.

We don't want people to think that biking is something for the poor, or "environmental activists," we want people to think biking is something that rich and successful people do, because it's better than driving.

This will get more people into biking, and once they're hooked we can tell them how to deal with shitty weather and jerk-off motorists.

I'm not sure you live in London. You've missed the mark with your reply. I wasn't really complaining of the use of a successful male but rather the stock photography, stereotypical, aspirational lifestyle art direction. You could have had exactly the same planning strategy and presented it in an entirely different, more applicable, way. In my opinion anyway.

And I understand perfectly well how advertising works. The demographic they represent here is exactly the sort you find riding bikes...if you look at the demographic of the Boris bikes you'll find it's predominantly male 30-40 years olds earning more than £30k per year.

I never said we should portray that biking is for the poor or environmental activists. I said and I quote "the message [is/should be] that cycling is for everyone" and that by creating the video in the style they have, they contradict their message.

Thanks for your comments! actually our brief was to appeal to that demographic, successful men in that borough, to make them think that just perhaps a bike is useful way to get around and save time: as we know their motto, time = money...

yeah.