When you reside in London, chances are high you have danced round a toppled Lime bike or grumbled as one blocked your route altogether. For creatives Agatha O’Neill and Sarah Lisgo, the town’s rising muddle of poorly parked e-bikes turned greater than a passing nuisance. It turned the inspiration for Do not Be a Lemon with Your Lime, a guerrilla sticker marketing campaign that is half protest, half PSA, and completely powered by a love of design with function.
“We knew we needed to do one thing across the problem for some time,” says Agatha. “The problem is not new. Dumped bikes are one thing you see each single day in the event you reside in London. It is grow to be the brand new regular, and it is progressively been getting worse.”
The duo had been notably struck by the accessibility implications of deserted bikes, which might pose critical hazards for disabled folks making an attempt to navigate already-complicated streets. Sarah’s perspective was formed by her companion’s work as a carer for Kyle, who lives with cerebral palsy.
“It is made me much more conscious of limitations to accessibility in day-to-day life,” she says. “There’s the apparent stuff, like entry to move or venues – but additionally the on a regular basis issues society appears to miss, like parking up on curbs or leaving bikes in the course of pavements.”
The challenge’s cheeky title—Do not Be a Lemon with Your Lime—got here naturally as soon as the pair settled on stickers as their medium of protest. “We thought it will be attention-grabbing to anchor all the idea round lemons as an opposition to Limes,” says Agatha. From there, they developed a sequence of punchy, graphic stickers that talk on to riders, utilizing humour, daring visuals, and a touch of sass to seize consideration.
“When you’re utilizing a Lime bike, you are most likely in a rush to get to that assembly throughout city or these drinks down the Blue Publish,” says Agatha. “So we wanted to create stickers which might be as punchy and arresting as attainable. Therefore the easy, daring visuals and provocative tone of voice.”
The result’s a sequence of playful interventions—like a lemon character yelling, “Park it correctly, pal!” or slogans like “Do not depart me right here; I am not your ex!”—that goals to immediate a second’s pause earlier than somebody hops off and ditches their trip.
Whereas the tone is humorous, the intent is critical. “We consider that critical points can actually profit from being talked about in a human approach,” says Sarah. “The stickers may simply appear like a stern guardian telling folks off – and who listens to their dad and mom?”
By selecting stickers, the pair additionally unlocked a intelligent mechanic for each consciousness and affect. Lime bikes, in spite of everything, are cellular, and so they transfer from rider to rider throughout the town. As soon as a sticker is utilized, its message stays with the car, confronting each new person who hops on. “It is a everlasting(ish) option to put the message on the market and flow into it everywhere in the metropolis,” Agatha explains. “More often than not, we’re simply not pondering. So somewhat immediate could possibly be all it takes for some folks to park extra rigorously.”
They’re additionally utilizing the marketing campaign to lift funds for incapacity charities, encouraging folks to purchase the stickers on-line and unfold the message themselves. “It is an accessible approach for folks to become involved and for us to lift cash with out asking the world from folks,” says Sarah.
To this point, the general public response has been overwhelmingly constructive. “We have had quite a lot of messages from folks saying they love the thought and the stickers themselves,” Agatha says. “Notably from folks in London, who’ve stated they’re actually wanted.”
The pair are additionally fielding a gentle stream of DMs with photographs of misbehaving bikes—a sort of crowdsourced documentation effort they did not fairly anticipate. “We actually welcome and encourage anybody to ship them to our Instagram web page,” provides Agatha.
Lime hasn’t responded instantly, however Agatha and Sarah are clear that the marketing campaign is not aimed on the operator. “Our gripe is not with the corporate; it is with careless riders,” says Agatha. “If authorized motion had been taken in opposition to us, that might be lacking the purpose utterly.”
They’re additionally hoping to open the door to collaboration, whether or not with Lime or native authorities. “It might be nice to work collectively to amplify the ramifications that poor Lime parking has on folks,” Sarah says. “Lots of people do it as a result of they merely aren’t conscious of how this might affect particular communities.”
Whereas the marketing campaign is presently targeted on London, the difficulty is way from localised. The pair have ambitions to develop the challenge past the capital, presumably increasing it into conversations round car parking extra broadly. “Whereas Lime bikes are a extra London-centric problem, the issue of obstructing public pathways is nationwide,” Sarah explains.
Finally, success for Do not Be a Lemon with Your Lime is not nearly protection or sticker gross sales however about sparking small adjustments in consciousness and behavior. “If our stickers encourage even one Limebike person to park that little bit extra rigorously, then will probably be price it,” says Agatha. “In spite of everything, you by no means understand how your easy act of parking your bike badly would possibly have an effect on another person’s day.”