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JOINING UP WITH a fashion or sports brand is a common way for car makers to add some glamour to their more mundane models. The marketing people from the two companies will get together and work out a mutually beneficial way of promoting their products. Usually, this will involve adding a few logos and stripes to the car, pillaging each other’s mailing lists and running a competition.

One Asian brand tried just this formula to add sparkle to a hatchback by hooking up with a mountain bike maker. The deal was signed, the stripes were added to the car and the latest e-bikes were supplied for a photoshoot. The forest location was hired and models posed as a couple loading the chunky cycles onto the car’s roof bars.

Just before the campaign was signed off and the emails sent out, someone in the technical department pointed out that the bikes’ weight would comfortably exceed the stated payload allowed on that car’s particular roof.

After frantic calls and meetings with the legal department, the entire photoshoot was binned and pictures hastily reshot in a corner of the company’s car park – with no bikes in sight.