The Motorcycle Council of New South Wales is a volunteer organisation that actively works at improving rider safety in the state and nationally. The council has been running the Motorcycle Awareness Week continuously since 1996.

In the three years that Espresso Communications has worked on this campaign, one of the underlying challenges is a presumption held by the media that the only people interested in motorcycling stories and safety are motorcyclists themselves. For its campaign in 2006, Espresso Communications took a different approach by using a new media platform to speak to the community at large, rather than a niche audience who already have an understanding of the issues facing riders every day on the road.

Espresso Communications developed a viral marketing campaign as a way of bypassing editorial filters to raise awareness for both motorcycle riders and rider safety. It worked with an outsourced vendor to develop a video which was distributed through YouTube. The video featured nude motorcyclists riding through the streets to catch the attention of all road users and to encourage people “look twice” for motorcycles

As part of the campaign, Espresso Communications managed the media outreach to drive awareness to the new approach the council was taking. The video campaign drew 1,251,212 hits over a four month period. Espresso Communications also negotiated for the video to be run as an unpaid public service announcement. The campaign received media coverage across, metropolitan and regional papers, consumer magazines and radio stations when it was announced. It was one of the most viewed videos on the Sydney Morning Herald website on the launch day.