Mr Moped
13 Columbia Road
Bournemouth BH10 4DZ

There is something quite special going on in this photograph, which you may already have spotted.

When your product is a relatively cheap and accessible mode of transport for local shoppers and commuters, where better to position your store than directly adjacent to a bus shelter?

How many people have sat at bus stop 2b awaiting their transport home, quietly pondering whether a moped might be a better alternative, and perhaps even taking the opportunity to inspect Mr Moped's display models?

It is a poetic juxtaposition of contrasting consumer choices that brings to mind the telephone box / mobile phone shop relationship that detained us not so long ago.

Sceptical readers might argue that the location of the shop next to a bus shelter is a happy coincidence, rather than a deliberate marketing strategy. But there is other evidence that Mr Moped is a canny operator. He is, after all, another exponent of the telephone-number-minus-local-dialling-code method of signalling oneself as a brand for local people (cf Mr Plastics).

Good for Mr Moped. I suspect he is doing great business.

Mr Moped's logo depicts what appears to be either a polar bear or more likely some breed of canine, wearing a scarf and motorcycling goggles, riding a motorcycle which has just burst energetically through a red hoop.