Lime: Sh*tty Schooters by Buzzman

Lime, the brand responsible for planting drive-and-drop electric scooters across the world, is taking ownership of the criticism directed at its light vehicles and riders through a print campaign launching in Paris.

Lime and its e-scooter rivals such as Bird have come under immeasurable international criticism in their early years. Critics point to the unsightly ‘dumping’ of scooters, the cluttering of streets, riders’ illegal use of sidewalks and the dangers they pose when merging with traffic.

Now, Lime’s French operation has taken these outbursts of frustration, such as “Shitty scooters!” and “These scooters are such a fucking pain” and turned them into its latest campaign, as part of its repositioning as a ‘responsible urban mobility leader’.

Working with Parisian agency Buzzman, the brand used an asterisk to double grammatical effect: censor the swear words and add extra information about the best way to use its scooters.

‘Shitty scooters!’ for instance, becomes ‘Sh*tty scooters! (*not applicable for scooters that stay off the sidewalk)’ and “Scooters really piss me off” becomes ‘Scooters really p*ss me off (*not applicable to riders who respect pedestrians)’.