Montreal-based Opus Bicycles has tapped Exacto Communications to develop and execute its 2014 public relations campaign, as well as to help focus its 2015 branding strategy.
Exacto, also based in Montreal, works with sporting goods clients such as Reebok, CCM and Oakley. “We have an expertise in sports products and it’s an industry I know very well,” said agency president Benoit Allaire. “For us, it’s such a natural fit and it’s a great brand, so we’re very happy.”
Opus manufacturers a wide range of road, mountain, urban and kids’ bikes. PR efforts will initially focus on increasing awareness of Opus’s line of urban bicycles.
“Urban cycling is one of the fastest-growing segments in cycling,” said Sylvain Bossé, marketing director of Outdoor Gear Canada, the parent company of Opus Bicycles. “The urban consumer is not the same as the consumer who is going to purchase a racing road bike… The best way to approach those [urban] consumers is to go through more traditional media, [such as] fashion magazines and television.”
Bossé said Opus is expanding into the U.S. this year, so it was the right time to hire a communications firm. “Exacto is going to gather some information for us so we can focus who our demographic is and how we’re going to approach that demographic as we’re expanding into the U.S.,” he said. “It’s the right year to focus the message we’re pushing.”
