Why Frog Bikes is hopping mad about events
20 October 2022
The 2022 events season comes slowly to an end for us at Frog Bikes. It was the first full year back attending events since Covid, which made everyone very excited and the teams couldn’t wait to get back out there.
With fleets of bikes, tents and event kits in hand (or vans) the past couple of months, we’ve been able to showcase our bikes and brand at events across the UK and Europe. These events have ranged from kids races, family and cycling events, stockists events to indoor expos. Most of the ones we have attended have been consumer events, but also included larger B2B events. Each event has had different layouts, approaches, sizes and locations with different benefits and objectives attached to them, but all served one purpose: bringing the brand to life!
With our team of trusty Frog event personnel, a great effort has gone into planning the events beforehand, which whilst can be stressful at times, is all worthwhile when we get to see happy children trying out our bikes with a smile on their faces. It’s a great way of bringing people together and engaging with our audience and of course, let’s not forget, gaining feedback directly from our consumers.
All the Frog event teams come home energised and full of many fantastic memories that totally makes everyone forget how much work was involved before and during the event.
We spoke to our team members to see what they like about events. Here are our top 10 reasons that make events so special to Frog:
10 Reasons why events are so important to us
1. Bringing joy to children
We usually bring a fleet of demo bikes ranging from balance bikes all the way up to our largest mountain bikes, to our events ready for children to try them out and to have fun on them. And this is probably the most important reason for all of us and what makes our heart beat faster: Seeing children grab one of our demo bikes and just ride off with a big smile on their face is very rewarding! The joy that a bike can bring to a child is priceless!
Fun is not only limited to riding the bikes, as Amarjit (Marketing Executive, UK, Ireland and ROW) remembers from the Tour of Cambridgeshire event: “The best part is seeing children enjoy themselves and coming back to ask if they can help us out during the day!.”
Allowing children the freedom and opportunity to try out other bike types is also very beneficial. Kids like to experience new things, some even flip from a City bike, to a hybrid to a mountain bike to see the difference in riding style.
2. Providing an environment for learning new skills
Events are great to help kids who are not confident on bikes to learn and progress! Our bikes are light and have child specific components and children find them easy to ride and manoeuvre, therefore making it easier to learn new skills - no matter where they are in their cycling journey.
Watching the more confident children master the skills track, watching kids jump on road bikes for the first time and go straight down on the drops, and watching the youngest riders on tadpoles on the pumptrack is amazing. Many of the children come back time and time again and you can see the difference in them the longer they spend on the bikes.
Sam (International Growth Executive) shares his experience from a recent event at EWS Innerleithena: “Watching the more confident children shred it over the jumps was great entertainment”.
3. Creating fun experiences for children and their families
Through events, we help create fun experiences for kids. The children are having fun learning new skills and parents, grandparents or other family and friends enjoy watching their children. This creates positive memories for everyone and Frog bikes made a big contribution to their fun day out.
Freya (Sales Manager) remembers from the Tour of Cambridgeshire event: “The kids that just kept coming back day after day because they loved riding the track so much...who knew riding around in circles could be so much fun!”
We want to help foster a generation of healthy, active and happy children with positive life-long habits, and we’re giving them the perfect tool to do just that.
4. Direct dialogue with consumers
It is not always easy to get direct feedback from consumers and to represent Frog Bikes outside the office environment. The face to face contact that happens at events is an important chance for conversations with our consumers and tells us how the public feels about Frog Bikes, our products, our brand and gives them the platform to feedback any suggestions. Sometimes, even new ideas are generated.
Nadine (Marketing Manager Europe) explains why ”Through attending events in different countries such as the BørneTour events in Denmark or the 3Rides Festival in Aachen gives us direct feedback from consumers and insights into markets that we manage from the head office”.
Talking to children directly can also bring enlightening findings such as “The boy that said the yellow road bikes were faster than the blue ones” remembers Jim (Head of Sales) from the BørneTour event in Copenhagen.
5. Educating parents and providing value
Events offer a chance to interact with parents and provide advice and tips about cycling. This includes fitting children on the right size and type of bike that may suit them and sometimes even teaching children to ride their bikes.
It also allows us to physically demonstrate the benefits of riding a lightweight child-specific bike that is expertly designed around a child’s unique anatomy and needs, instead of a steel scaled-down adult bike.
Taberna (Marketing Manager UK, Ireland and ROW) remembers from a recent event at Tweedlove “It was amazing to see Kris - our R&D manager - teaching a child to ride a bike!! The boy was reluctant to learn it with his parents, but with Kris’s help he learned how to pedal in just a few minutes!”
A lightweight bike with child-specific componentry is a lot easier to manoeuvre and handle and makes riding much more fun.
6. Tell our story
At events, we get to tell the story of our brand and see how mums and dads or other family members react so strongly to it, for example when we talk about us being a British family company with strong believe that it is our mission to make cycling fun for every child, to increase cycling participation and our strong efforts to protect the environment (link).
For those that are unaware of Frog Bikes it gives us a great opportunity to allow our award-winning products to do the talking. Features such as shorter cranks, scaled-down handlebars and easy to reach brake levers assist with comfortable riding, so that kids can travel further and faster.
“It is great to create awareness about our key benefits and values and surprise the public with facts that they may not always know,” says Amarjit.
7. Bringing people together around a shared passion
We love events because of the community feel. Seeing so many like-minded cyclists in one location is also quite amazing! Events bring people together and it is empowering and motivating to see children sharing their passion for cycling with us. We can help motivate parents who think it’s difficult to get kids on their cycling adventure. It can help boost confidence for some parents just by talking to them and guiding them on how they can positively encourage cycling.
Having children with a mixture of abilities at events can really help spur on others too. You can see the less confident cyclists watching the proficient riders and taking note and learning from them. They then use the demo tracks to put their new learnings to practice.
8. Meeting others from the cycling community
It is exciting to meet with professionals from the bike industry, journalists, existing customers and potential customers. Events are also excellent to assess competitor activity. It is very interesting to see how others are representing their brands at the events.
Claire (Marketing Executive, France and Benelux) explains from her experience at the B2B event Pro Days in Paris: “Presenting the whole range and getting bike experts to acknowledge the high quality of the Frog bikes makes me feel proud.”
9. Enjoy the atmosphere
We love the atmosphere at events. No matter if they are B2B or B2C events, the whole general relaxed, passionate and friendly atmosphere is very special in the bike industry. It’s great to be part of a like-minded community that collectively wants to make a change and get more kids on bikes.
“It is great fun exploring other bike stands and meeting people” comments Kris looking back at Tweedlove and EWS Innerleithen events.
10. The opportunity to visit new places and old ones
Where there is an event, there is usually some kind of travel involved. Events offer a great opportunity to visit beautiful places, gather new impressions and learn about how different and similar events in various regions are. It allows us to become more knowledgeable about our consumers, the locations they live in, their biking needs, and how we can best help to get more kids on bikes and instil healthy lifelong habits.
Last but not least, “Events are good for team bonding and mucking in together” as Freya states.
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