nokia and the scooter boys

The following is an article for Scootering magazine by Dean Orton of Rimini Lambretta Centre.

Over the years, as a shop we’ve been approached several times with regards to doing filming work for both Italian and UK networks. Most have gone on air and apart from the obvious publicity that entailed, it’s also a good laugh doing it.

Wieden+Kennedy is a London-based agency that had been commissioned by Nokia to find suitable ‘happy navigators’ for a forthcoming ad campaign featuring a new mobile navigation solution. They first visited Bar Italia in London and after speaking to main man Nick the Bubble, they in turn contacted us.
W+K initially asked us to supply between six and eight Lambretta sidecar outfits so we set about contacting local friends and customers who just happen to have such exotic machinery sat in their collective lock-ups. Despite the oddball request, we found seven outfits and our Paolo promptly sent over pictures of both scooters and riders for Nokia to have a look at, along with a few snaps of other scooters we have in the shop including some Mod-styled machines.
Within the hour W+K called us to say that Nokia had decided to use Mod scooters instead. Ah... Another host of calling around to friends and we’re on with half a dozen Lambrettas along with Marci Modz’s ‘loaded’ Vespa PX to complete the bill. For the techno-minded readers the campaign is all about the free (drive and walk) navigation on Ovi Maps that Nokia has been offering their smartphone customers since January of this year. To advertise this, they were looking for unique and creative modes of transport that people use around the world, to be used in their ad campaign. These included designer shoes which look like cars with tiny wheels, a decorated elephant, a mono-wheel cycle with a car engine, customised cars, a homemade rickshaw-pulling robot and us with loaded Mod scooters. Each of these highlights a ‘journey’ and thanks to the voice-guided Ovi Maps navigation application (for the technophobes; all-singing all-dancing gizmo), people were well and truly ‘connected’.
W+K explained what was required from us as Nokia intended to run campaign using the scooters on both TV and print. There was a filmed shoot for use on TV, on internet, in airport terminals and metro screens. The other was a photo shoot for billboard posters, magazines, newspapers and advertising on buses etc. The television campaign will show us riding together and “meeting up”; whilst the print-shoot shows a solo rider.
As the campaigns were to be used worldwide there were certain rules and regulations that needed adhering to. If publicity is shown in just one country then these are minimal, but when you have to keep everybody happy, the world over, then things can get a trifle more complicated as you make sure that no one is accidentally offended. Now whilst I already knew that the Vespa ET4 was re- branded the ET8 in Singapore because in certain dialects the number 8 is associated with luck or prosperity whereas the number 4 is considered unlucky, I didn’t know that wearing a green hat in China means your wife has been bed-hopping. That meant no green crash helmets for the advert. We also swapped the animal print seat covers (so as not to be mistaken for real skins), and the flyscreen from my Lambretta TV200 also had to be removed, firstly because the name of Southend revival Mod band Speedball emblazoned across it could be misconstrued by some (apparently John Belushi liked Speedball – I suppose the suits and music in The Blues Brothers should have suggested he was a Mod!), and secondly because an uncluttered handlebar meant we could mount the actual product being advertised in view of both the rider and cameramen!
Come day one, after being briefly acquainted with the first crew of 20 technicians, cameramen, assistants and assistants’ assistants etc., we toured our local Romagna county to photograph ‘Speedball’ being ridden down all manner of quaint Italian streets. I have to say that of all the
people we’ve done film work with over the years, these were the most professional people we’ve ever had the pleasure of working with, together with the W+K team. The head honcho for the print shoot was Josh Cole, who normally shoots skaters and rappers in the most far-flung / dangerous parts of the planet and is highly regarded in such circles. He was extremely down-to-earth to work with and knew exactly what he wanted, picture-wise. The only challenge we had was that the location chaps had chosen every cobbled street in Romagna. Not the easiest surface to ride upon in any situation, but with a fully loaded Mod scooter? “Now, you ride down there, as fast as you can and lean right over in front of the camera as you pass by.” Yeah, right mate. After pointing out that ‘Speedball’ was “not a motor-crosser,” we managed to negotiate the speed factor more akin for a Mod scooter sliding about on shiny cobblestones. Marvellous! Six locations later, no chrome bodywork scraping off poor road surfaces, plenty of pictures in the bag and it was a ‘wrap’, as they say.
The next part of the show was the actual TV shoot filming. The location people were still undecided as to where to film so we suggested a tiny mountain-top town called San Leo. “Does it have cobblestones?” came the reply. Upon the affirmative, the location was sorted. This time the shoot crew was ably run by Joseph Bullman, who is well known in documentary making circles. Seeing as we all had to be ‘on set’ in San Leo at 7am, which is the best part of 50km from the shop, I suggested that W+K put us up in the town’s only hotel the night before, to avoid any possible ‘hiccups’ en-route on the morning in question. This also meant we could all partake in a decent jolly-up the night before. Being total professionals, meant that everyone got completely off their collective trollies in no time at all – I don’t think that San Leo has experienced anything like the show put on by JJ Vianello and Paolo singing at the tops of their voices at gone midnight!
Come morning the film crew was ready to roll and surprisingly, considering the above, so were we. Bleary eyed but ready. The cobblestones were also ready and ‘Speedball’ was sliding out on a constant basis. The Lambretta had previously also been fitted out with several on-board cameras and these managed to eat up over 300 ‘AA’ batteries during the days filming. Joseph had us noisily riding up and down all day, much to the ‘delight’ of the locals and several hundred sight- seeing tourists who at least now had something else to photograph other than the local castle and tacky gift shops. With San Leo being an ancient fortress town meant that the high walled buildings blocked all useable sunlight out by 5pm. Despite the late afternoon rush to finish the last shots, Joseph seemed perfectly happy with all the footages he’d managed to shoot and once again the show came to an end with grins all round.

The end results of the shoot have been used world-wide on TV, on billboards, train stations, public transport, airports and even during the intervals of the World Cup football matches. The scooter footage has been used in multiple ads along with others mentioned above and also on its own, depending on which country it has been aired in. Whilst I don’t deny it’s also been positive for the shop in general, hopefully the outcome will also see people who had never previously thought about getting a scooter considering doing just that. And that’s what really counts.

Dean Orton

That, and downloading and using Ovi maps, of course!