BikeBiz Bicycle and cycling retail news
Logistics company and London 2012 Olympic sponsor UPS has featured East Central Cycles in its latest TV ad.
Watch the advert here.
The ad also features trials rider Adam Bessell who was signed up by the makers to do the talking, but ended up performing jumps around the store instead.
The bike shop, located in Exmouth Market, came by its starring role through a chance meeting. ECC’s Ed Dudley told BikeBiz: "We became involved when a location scout was having dinner across the road at a restaurant, saw the shop and asked us if we were interested in having an advert shot inside.
"Originally we were supposed to close up for half a day but one of the cameras malfunctioned so they had to return and re-shoot some more bits in the afternoon. Thank god for patient customers!"
And did East Central Cycles’ regular customers spot the shop on the ad? Dudley explains: "We were showing the tour on our projector when the advert came on and several people were looking around fairly confused."
BikeBiz posed the question whether this could be the start of a glittering on-screen career for the shop, to which Dudley answered: "If you look very closely in one of the shots you can see Dan and Jim, two of the owners. However they have so far not received any film scripts or Hello magazine photo offers.
"If anyone would like to use the shop again, I think we’d be up for it as long as it doesn’t disrupt the service to our customers too much and they provide an elaborate array of energy drinks, cheesecake and bagels."
East Central Cycles 18 Exmouth Market EC1R 4QE
