Every Tour de France, hundreds of penises are graffitied onto the race track. 🍆 Organisers struggle to cover them up before they’re broadcast to a TV audience of 3.5 billion people. ⛔️📺 🚁
They even employ a group called ‘The Eraser Men’, just to deal with the problem. ⚠️ “During the race, especially in the mountains as the riders go slower, we see big willies.” Patrick Dancoisne - The Eraser Men
But rather than hide them, we worked with Skoda to adapt them into artworks that promote the Tour de France Femmes, which starts straight after the men’s event. 💡👩🎨🎨
Skoda already had 220 electric support cars across the men’s and women’s races. But car 221 didn’t just support the race, it supported the drive to grow women’s cycling. 👀 🚴♀️💪🏻
We partnered with Global Street Art and Glue Society to bring the #BDE (Big Dick Energy) and help out the Eraser Men. Inside the car were an all-female crew of artists, who responded to penises on the track, adapting them into artworks to #WatchTheFemmes
Often they only had seconds to transform before the peloton arrived … Balls became bike wheels. Helmets transform into cycling helmets. All hijacking the scale of the men’s race, to get eyeballs on the women’s. 👀 🚴♀️💪🏻
And it worked 💥 Their artwork was featured on live TV coverage across channels like Eurosport, with global commentators talking to the initiative and driving viewers to watch the Femmes. 🚴♀️🚴♀️🚴♀️
#WatchTheFemmes
As is true of life, penis graffiti at the Tour De France comes in all shapes and sizes. Working with Global Street Art, we prepared for every eventuality, to be ready to respond to the girth and length we discovered live on race day. X10 works by artists Cécile Dormeau and Erin Aniker were tested on tarmac ahead of time.