
OFF TO A FLYING START
How a design and brand-led business was established and has exponentially grown.
Throughout cycling stage-races like the Tour de France, there is a start line followed by a few kilometres of neutralised ‘rolling’. The Départ of the stage then takes place as a rolling, often flying, start.
So it is fitting that a new bicycle brand should do much the same.
On 1 July 2017, CHAPTER2 was successfully launched. But it was more of a départ than a standing start — here’s the story…
The start line.
At the beginning of 2016, Mike Pryde and his family left Hong Kong and moved to New Zealand.
Mike, who had started and grown the Neil Pryde bicycle division, had an idea for a new bicycle brand — to build bicycles that he would love to ride and that would appeal to cyclists who wanted something classic yet different. He also wanted the brand to be firmly planted in New Zealand.
Mike himself would do the design of the bicycle frame-sets (frame, fork, seat post and stem), but he recognised early on that launching a new product in a hugely competitive market would require a design and brand-led approach.
First port of call was Sam Allan and his team at Onfire Design. Onfire had already worked with other bicycle brands and Sam is a passionate cyclist. Together with Mike they created a brand that would stand out and resonate with cyclists the world over.
‘The Road Less Travelled’ was established as a brand Idea and Maori Illustrator Mohi Toko was commissioned to develop a visual story that could bring it to life. Emphasising the birthplace and origin of the brand. The blue green of melting alpine rivers alongside snow white tops inspired the colour ways.*

The Onfire team also began the process of designing and building the C2 website — something that sits at the core of the brand’s business model of going direct to the consumer.
The products themselves are visually stunning and photographer Tony Brownjohn was brought on to capture the pre-production frames in studio.

The products themselves are visually stunning and photographer Tony Brownjohn was brought on to capture the pre-production frames in studio.
Whilst this was happening, Mike and I discussed how we would bring the brand to market.
Rather than the traditional advertising route, we decided to make use of two key components: Ambassadors (or Test Pilots as we called them) and Social Media.
Mike contacted people around the Asia Pacific region who would become C2 Test Pilots — people who are passionate about cycling and who have engaged followings on platforms such as Instagram and Facebook in particular. Two months before the 1 July launch date, the Test Pilots all had a brand new CHAPTER2 TERE frame-set; theirs to add whichever wheels and components they wanted.
We established a simple set of guidelines and a lockup of hashtags for the Test Pilots to use and encouraged them to keep doing what they had already been doing: riding and posting about their rides.
Within a week, C2’s Facebook page had gone from 20 to 1,000 engaged followers, with Instagram quickly following suit. Critically, we started to receive enquiries about the bicycle’s availability.
At this time we engaged the services of specialist Facebook marketing agency Ad Hoc. Along with them, we defined the strategy and tactics for launching the brand.
We did a day-long photoshoot, with A-grade cyclists riding TERE bikes equipped with top-range components and wheels amongst the beauty of Auckland’s Western hills and beaches.
Photos from that shoot were then released via Facebook, Instagram and email campaigns.

Word of mouth in cycling circles spreads fast, and the combination of social media, targeted Facebook ads, MailChimp emails, and having Test Pilots in local group rides very quickly gave our new brand traction.
People wanted the bikes.
Pre-orders started to roll in — many purely on the strength of the content that was being posted.
By the week before launch, Facebook and Instagram followers had risen about 2,000 each, with Email signups climbing to 1,500.
In the manic world of social media marketing, follower numbers can be hugely misleading; what counts is engagement and conversion. In the case of C2, both metrics were (and continue to be) high.
Départ
The départ had arrived — 1 July — CHAPTER2’s official launch.
On launch day, over 70% of C2’s annual sales targets had already been hit.

Since the launch, we have had a road show of events in Auckland, Melbourne and Hong Kong, with Bangkok and Tokyo still to come. These events allowed us to not only showcase the new C2 TERE bicycles, but also to directly talk to cyclists who have followed the story as it has unfolded.
We’ve also enjoyed the support of local blog The Ride along the way.
We also released a Special Edition frame to commemorate the iconic Stage 17 of this year’s Tour de France. Only 17 were made and almost all 17 have already sold.
From the outset, CHAPTER2 aimed to be brand and design-led, and we have not only achieved that, but will continue to do so.
More stages to come
There is no question that CHAPTER2 is off to a flying start. There’s also no question that the road ahead will have hills and valleys, but it’s an exciting road to be on.
To find out more about C2, take a look at the website.
*Description from the Onfire website.
