• by Nina Lentini  @Nina_Lentini, April 13, 2016

Breaking just in time for Tax Day on Friday (although you have until Monday to file your taxes), Huffy Bikes’ latest campaign brings the wisdom of children to the fore.

The effort by Brunner out of Pittsburgh involves social videos, a sweepstakes, and TV spots and features kids’ solution to grown-ups’ problems — like paying taxes. All the solutions involve inexpensive bikes like Huffy’s $119 Cranbrook Cruiser and the tagline “Stressed adults need a bike ride.”

“Many of the women within our target are looking for ways to unwind from the deadlines and planning in their everyday lives," Dave Vissat, VP, creative director at Brunner, tells Marketing Daily. "They crave the nostalgia that you’re reminded of every time you get on a bike, but lack the time to take advantage of it. With this campaign, we wanted to reintroduce the idea that once you’re on your bike, #grownupproblems disappear.”

According to The Wall Street Journal, the fastest-growing segment of the near-flat bike category is cheaper rides, the company says, which are used not for commuting or racing but for casual recreation.

In one introductory :60 and six more :15s, 12-year-old Huffy spokeskid Grace Elias and others of her generation enact adults’ tweets hashtagged #grownupproblems. The first, breaking on Tax Day, has a young girl up late at a paper-strewn desk. She says, “It’s Monday night, and I have a hot date. With Uncle Sam.”Cut to Grace, outdoors in a sunny yard, showing off a bike: “There’s no tax on riding this sweet cruiser. Just sayin’.” 

The spots’ close is a call to “submit your #grownupproblems for a chance to win,”and links, via Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Huffy.com, to a sweepstakes. Entries will in turn become new campaign fodder, with solutions to the new problems shared over Huffy’s owned Twitter and Instagram channels (“Worst part of doing laundry is trying to match the socks”; “Didn’t you hear? Mismatched socks is the latest trend”?). Entrants may win one of 47 Huffy Cruisers awarded daily April 15 though May 31, or the June 1 grand prize, adult’s and kid’s bikes for a family of four. Entry details will be at Huffy.com/Sweeps (live as of April 15).

A branding TV :30, with spokeskid Grace, will run on 14 mom-focused networks, such as Bravo, E!, Lifetime, BET, Hallmark, and Oxygen. Online media for the :60 preroll and six :15s is an 11.8-million impression buy, via YuMe, Tremor, and BrightRoll, targeting moms who are 30 to 49, working, active, pragmatists, pleasure-seeking and Walmart, Target or Kmart shoppers. There will also be paid Facebook, Twitter and Instagram advertising.

Creative credits for the campaign go to Brunner chief creative officer Rob Schapiro and to director Ernie Mosteller of production company Fried Okra Entertainment.

Huffy Corp., based in Centerville, Ohio, is privately held.