This is a commercial called "Dream Rangers" on Youtube, I'm not sure what it's selling exactly, or why it's made by a bank, but it tells an inspirational tale of some old men dusting off their motorcycles and going for a group motorcycle tour.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vksdBSVAM6g
There are a lot of reasons that I feel something from this video. When I first started riding I was 21 years old. Now I'm 62 and of I have been feeling the effects of aging, and several of those effects have made it more difficult or possibly even dangerous to go motorcycling. When I was young, it was all about the bike not breaking down. Now the bike is fine, it's all about me not breaking down. But I'm still almost 20 years younger than the average age of the group in this video.
One of my older friends had to give up riding a few years ago, and has since died. I know quite a few people who used to ride but do not any more. I would like to at least be able to ride as long as possible. I think as I get older, I would even be willing to change over to a motorcycle that is easier to handle, such as a scooter or even my CD175.
I was interested in knowing if this was really based on a true story. The "Dream Rangers" video, although obviously staged, is apparently based on these men who spent thirteen days traveling around Taiwan -1139 kilometers. There is a documentary about their trip, which looks believable.
An introduction to the documentary is here (called "Go Grandriders"):
http://www.nme.com/movies/trailers/id/AjWnc54ZMUQ/search/movie
Anyway it's nice to keep the dream alive.
Is a very neat vid clip...makes me feel young!
ReplyDeletebit funny that 13 days & 1100kms--but perhaps when I'm 80 that won't seem so funny...
Indications are that this was 'based on a true story.'
ReplyDeleteHowever, it is a piece of feel-good advertising (i.e. advertising designed to elicit a positive emotional response, with little or no reference to the actual product being hyped) produced by the Taiwan branch of the huge and controversial advertising behemoth, Oglivy and Mather (16,000 employees in 125 countries).
It is one in a series of ads in Ta Chong Bank's (TC Bank's) latest branding campaign, 'Extraordinary Ordinary People' produced for them by Ogilvy.
I'm sure that those involved with this production are simply ecstatic that the ad has gone viral (and bonuses all around).
Nice that it went viral without anybody having their head blown off. (like the 10:10 video)
ReplyDeleteThe commercial was based on a true story happened in 2007. There's a documentary about this story - "Go Grand-riders!" There English subtitle if you can find the movie. Seventeen of them, average age 81, 2 of them were cancer survivors, 13 of them have cardiovascular disease, all of them have problem with their knees. They finished the tour of Taiwan in 13 days. Along the way, they visited many nursing homes to encourage other seniors. In Chinese, "activity, active" is 活動, literally translation is "live and move". http://edtwfilmfest.wordpress.com/feature-films/go-grand-riders/
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