Ritte: How I built an iconic brand with no budget and even less sleep.

A year ago, I left the company I founded and ran for a decade. Ritte may not have been the most commercially successful endeavor in history, but it was one of the most influential cycling brands in recent memory: it enjoyed a cult-like status among a core group of enthusiasts, and the tone, design, and ethos were quickly adopted by other companies. We’d set out to change cycling for the better, and by that metric Ritte was wildly successful.

setting up for the first Ritte ad shoot

In the year since, I’ve had countless conversations about marketing. I’ve advised entrepreneurs starting their own small brands and I’ve pitched my bone fides to advertising folks while on the job hunt. The first group wants to know how they can do what I did. The second group wants to know why they should care about my little bicycle hobby. After all, I didn’t even win any awards!

Putting aside whether or not Ritte’s marketing was actually good, I do know it worked. So for posterity’s sake, let’s say, I’m jotting down what I did right here. Let’s get into it.

Defining and Communicating the Ritte Brand

I’m of the opinion that a brand is not what a company says about itself but rather what its audience feels it is. If you agree with this basic premise then it should follow that a brand’s constitute parts are as complex and deep as the facets of a human personality. People can be trustworthy or selfish, and funny or glum, frenetic or steadfast, or any combination thereof, plus thousands more subtleties that themselves are constantly changing! There are literally infinite varieties of likable, successful human beings and infinitely more versions of folks who are, sadly, unlikeable or unmemorable. Ultimately, no matter who you think you are, your personal brand is what people think of you.

Imagining brands as people helps me grasp that a brand can’t help but be a reflection of every element of the business it represents: a problematic business may be able to hide its true nature for awhile, but its audience will sense that something's not right and they'll seek out alternatives that feel better. Simply updating the brand voice, changing the graphic elements, or even writing an inspiring Mission Statement is pointless unless every layer of the business reflects it--and even that doesn’t take into account a company’s evolution over time. 

With Ritte, I had the opportunity to build a company and a brand together, interwoven from the ground up.

So I started with a mission: “To change cycling culture for the better.”

Maybe that was a little generic, but it was sincerely what I felt was necessary. I loved cycling but there were many things about its culture that I disliked: it was often too serious and aggressive, and many influential cyclists and cycling brands lacked perspective and a sense of humor. After all, we were just a bunch of grown ups in tight clothes riding around on kids’ toys. Don’t get me wrong, I loved those kids’ toys and the Lycra clothes and the faster-than-you competitiveness, but the cycling culture and Industry often seemed at odds with what made the sport truly lovable. I knew it didn’t have to be that way.

So when I sat down to sketch out the foundational elements of the brand, I started with a story that would serve as the guiding narrative. It was about a Belgian bike racer, Henri “Ritte” Van Lerberghe, who 100 years ago rode to victory in one of the biggest races of the year. Henri took the lead early in the race and built up such a margin by the finishing town that he stopped in a pub for a beer. Only after finishing his pint and telling some jokes did he get back on his bike and cross the finish line, still in first place. 

Henri Van Lerberghe walking across the finish line.

Having a foundational narrative certainly isn’t compulsory, but it made my next steps a lot easier. I chose colors that reflected the Belgian flag and and Olympic team, and designed a logo based off the same. Our values emphasized fun, humor, perspective, and temerity in the face of cynicism. And because these themes where unusual in the cycling industry, Ritte couldn’t help but appear iconoclastic: the brand had a definitive point of view, and that alone was enough to demand attention among the hundreds of other brands crowding the market.

Some companies can buy their audience attention, operate at a loss for years, and force sales by subsidizing pricing. They seem to approach their marketing and company values in a piecemeal way, with no core idea and no connective tissue between company process and marketing choices. Many companies simply fund their way through the building phase but Ritte had no such options. We had to win customers who would want to stick with us for the love of the brand and our products.

Clubs and Teams - Being welcoming is better than being cool.

I sincerely believe that the strongest human drive is not sex or money or respect, but rather the need to belong. It animates almost all our choices, and is the simplest explanation for brand loyalty and consumer trends. If product’s true benefit is a ticket to a community then few other purchase considerations even matter. At Ritte, we opened our arms to cyclists of all types, and created a home for them to find acceptance and friendships. We also encouraged our dealers and distributors to be brand stewards and form their own Ritte clubs and teams. From Sidney to Stockholm, Bangkok to Burbank, you could find Ritte club and team members out on the roads together, proud of the kit they wore and the bikes they rode. Because Ritte was more than a good bike and nice looking clothing, it was a safe place to where community welcomed them in.

Video - Entertain, don’t sell. 

Video still from "Prolong Energy" mocumentary series

Video was a wide open medium in the Cycling world: there wasn’t a lot of video content online, and what there was reinforced the too-serious, hyper-romanticized fictions already present in the Culture. Humor was a natural way to go, so we shot lots and lots of scripted content that was short and sharable. Years earlier, I had created one of the world’s first commercial viral campaigns for The Coffee Bean called Mascot Roommate, so I had seen first hand how much traction could be gotten from bite-sized videos connected by a narrative.

So we created a small cast of fictional characters and went about making dozens of little videos that entertained, poked fun at cycling stereotypes, showed off our products organically, and generally showed that we were in it for the love.

Product design - Make great stuff and stand out.

Consumers can’t help but associate seriousness and pretense with refinement and trustworthiness, so having a light-hearted approach to marketing meant we had to double-down on quality. Our bikes couldn’t just be pretty, they needed to be great. Ritte owners would admit thinking initially their purchase was a compromise for style and brand over quality but then happily report that their Ritte was the best bike they ever owned.

Of course, people don’t see quality in magazine ads or from 10-feet away, so we worked hard to be daring with our products’ graphic design. In a sea of reds and blacks and silvers, Ritte designs were sky blues and whites and vivid yellows. One couldn’t help but feel the unarticulated brand message emanating from the product itself. 

Dealers and Distributors - Leveraging bigger networks

The Australian MAAP-Ritte Cycling Team.

Being a relatively cash-strapped company, we needed to amplify our presence in any way we could. To this end, we made our distributor network a force-multiplier, since their marketing budgets where often an order of magnitude greater than ours. Our network understood the importance of fostering community and worked hard to represent Ritte values in their own sales channels. Many dealers and distributors ran their own Ritte clubs and teams, and spent their own marketing budgets on trade shows, events, and demos. As a result, Ritte’s sales were as good in many countries outside the USA as they were here at home, keeping revenue coming in even through the leanest times of the year.

A quick note about dealers vs. direct sales: by 2009, the writing was on the wall for the traditional bike shop model. Dealers were feeling the pressure of online discount warehouses and direct to consumer brands. And brands who were selling though dealers were thinning their margins to translucency to stay competitive with online options. But the danger of a small direct to consumer brand is that it's totally alone in the world, nobody is invested in its existence other than it. Many at the time criticized this decision, but we chose to trust in the power of community and sell through dealers. Having others invested in our existence was more important than better margins.

Ambassadors - Role models are better than Influencers. 

The Ritte Elite Cyclocross Team's three stooges

Some people were true embodiments of our brand values: fun, inclusive, genuine, and fast. We especially tried our best to support young racers and women racers, two groups who are wildly underfunded in comparison to men’s racing. Regardless of their social media following, we chose individuals who were first and foremost excellent role models, and then we did our best to support their reach though our own social channels.

Collaborations - Thank you for your audience.

Did you know there were Ritte Edition POC sunglasses? What about the Ritte Edition Kali helmet? or the Mavic 125th Anniversary Ritte Vlaanderen? or how about the MAAP-Ritte Cycling Team? All of these brands were bigger and better established than Ritte at the times we collaborated, and did us great favors by introducing us to their audience and, more importantly, making a statement about our worthiness to be part of their inner-circle. In-turn, Ritte lent these larger brands a fresh voice and relevant partnership.

Social media - Hacking empathy.

Pardon the philosophical digression here, but the amazing thing about our brains is how we’re wired to recreate the feelings of others within ourselves. When you see someone stub her toe, your brain fires those same signals as if you yourself had stubbed your toe. We understand each other and bond because we quite literally internalize the emotional states of those around us. Furthermore, there’s no distance limit on this phenomenon: you can watch someone cry on TV, and your brain will have will have a similar response as if the character were right there on the couch with you. 

Turns out, the sense of belonging and feeling of community are conveyed exactly the same way. If you see images of people with whom you feel a commonality, hanging out and enjoying themselves, you’ll feel a little bit of that community as well. So at Ritte, we harnessed this power though every channel, not cynically, but though a genuine desire to share our joy and community. Remote members of our audience got to participate in the Ritte family vicariously though those who were present. Social, therefore, was an extension, and another force multiplier, of the power of our clubs and teams. 

On the product side, we found that great-looking bikes spread through other social pages like wildfire. Harnessing this effect, we created and shared custom designs as often as possible. 

Print - Meaning in context.

Perhaps because I am an old-school copywriter by trade, I loved making glossy print ads. Did they directly result in immediate sales? Not really. But in a world where traditional media was fading, buying print space demonstrated our appreciation for the journalists, editors, and industry professionals whose livelihood depended on long-form. So on the few occasions where we bought a space, I’d see it as an opportunity to make a statement within the context of that particular magazine. I wanted our page to visually stand out and express a point of view just as our bikes did the same in a pack.  

Online Advertising - Eh. Eh?

I can’t discount the importance of online advertising, including Google Adwords, paid social, and selected interactive banner placements, but it wasn’t much of an option for Ritte. First, because pull style advertising was abrasive to the brand image and, second, paid advertising costs a lot of money. Of course, many businesses see a directly proportional ROI to the money they pay into online ads, which makes doing business without those tools impossible. I’d like to point out, however, that many of those business have not otherwise invested their resources into alternative methods of building an audience and loyal customer base.

Email - Only when absolutely necessary. 

I have enough emails in my inbox and saw no reason to flood our audience with spam. So when we had something to announce that we truly thought people would want to hear, we let them know via email. Taking this only-when-necessary approach meant that we often had a 90% open and 50% click-through rate. 

Trade shows - Paying it forward.

The giants of the cycling industry may be owned by large conglomerates and run by professional executives, but the industry’s heartbeat is blue-collar folks who are in it for the love. Trade shows gave us a chance to show our appreciation in-person. We did this by offering at-cost discounts on Ritte bikes to industry workers. And of course we threw a big party every year at the Interbike trade show called Underbike, where we put our meager marketing dollars to good use on a venue and band, and invited all the unsung heroes of the Industry to join us. 

Image from the 2014 Underbike Party

The result was Ritte bikes were ridden by employees at almost every company in the Industry, including many other bike brands. Instead of being seen as an imposter or encroacher, Ritte was well-regarded even among direct competitors. After all, good will is a precious commodity even if it’s hard to trace its ROI. 

PR - Let others be pushy.

We didn't feel comfortable being seen pushing too hard for product reviews and new product announcements, interviews and articles, and other generally salesy work like that so we off-loaded that work to a professional PR agency. In this case, Echos Communications. If you want to know about how they do what they do, talk to 'em because I'm helpless in that area.

Okay I'm bored. I'm sure you are too. Let's wrap it up -

I can go on and on with brand elements we fostered and marketing channels we leveraged but I think you get the recurring themes: 

1) We aimed to build a company that would pursue our mission and reflect our values in every aspect. We didn’t always succeed in this, but even through our failures we tried to maintain a commitment to those goals. 

2) We created products that both reflected the spirit of our values and were truly high-quality.

3) We didn’t buy customers, we won them over by being genuine, welcoming, and by creating a community.

4) We developed symbiotic relationships with bigger, better-funded operations to amplify our message. 

5) We supported people within our industry and in turn they supported us. 

If you’ve made it all the way down here, you are a true hero. If you have questions or comments about my experience building Ritte, or why it matters, shoot me an email at spencer@superotter.com. 

Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.

Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.