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Brief
The London Marathon was sponsored by adidas, who aimed to extend this sponsorship beyond a traditional campaign. Their objective was to add value to the London Marathon experience, which would allow them to become part of the conversation within the marathon community – before, during and after the big run.
So it was important to do something different from all the other sponsors in the space, and to not only push messages to consumers but to actively engage them in the brand and create a strong connection with the London Marathon event.
In order to achieve this, we created a campaign around the insight that nobody runs a marathon on their own – runners depend on the support of friends and family to reach their ambition.
Strategy
Marvellous realised that we needed to bring the supporters closer to the runners, so they knew where they were going to be at what time, to enable them to cheer them on or simply track their progress during the race. This helps the runners to achieve their goals and to follow the adidas mantra that nothing is impossible.
Mobile was the perfect medium to be used as a means of communication on the day - as it allowed for instant communication, when other media could not be personalised enough to track individual runners.
The solution was to create the adidas Runner Tracker, an application available on all mobiles over the mobile internet, which would allow supporters to see where a certain runner was on the course and get an update on their progress so far.
The technology took data from RFID chips which all runners are given by the London Marathon officials, to go in their shoes to capture their start and finish times. This data was combined with timing mats across every 5k on the course, to enable the application to show on a map where the runner was within a 5k distance at a certain time, and how fast they were running through.
It also calculated information on average speed and estimated finish time – meaning friends and family could be in the right place at the right time to cheer them on.
It enabled runners to get on with the run without having to worry where their supporters were or co-ordinate where they would be running past at a certain time.
Execution
The Runner Tracker was created as a mobile site, so that it would work on all internet-enabled mobile phones.
The simple interface allowed supporters to initially register the runner they would be supporting by entering their official runner number into their site. They would then get the runners details; name, home town and they could save the runner as a favourite, so that they could easily and quickly access their information on the day.
Before the race we utilised social media to make adidas a crucial part of the conversation by informing people that they had created the useful and innovative application.
Relevant Twitter feeds were targeted, and search alerts were set up so that anyone searching for the Marathon could be targeted with a personalised message encouraging them to interact. A Facebook page was created and specialist blogs were targeted with information. Conversations were searched, monitored and managed to maximise uptake of the service by blog readers.
Out of home and print media, across the London Paper and London Lite also supported the campaign by encouraging supporters to text RUN to 83040 to receive a link to the mobile site.
On the day of the Marathon users could track on a map where their runners were, what time they had achieved so far, what their average speed was and when they were expected to finish.
Results
For the second year running the application was an outstanding success. Social media helped us to firstly generate buzz about the campaign and spread the word much further than would have been possible with traditional media alone. It allowed us to tap into a tech-savvy audience, to ensure they knew about the application and would then tell their friends about it.
Over 1 million people were exposed to conversations about the adidas Runner Tracker via social media and press
36,400 people text in to receive a link back to the mobile site, a 566% increase from 2008, due to the added reach from social media, outdoor and press.
On the day over 500,000 people interacted with the adidas Runner Tracker, meaning that this number of supporters had an enhanced experience helping them to support their runners.
Once on the site the average dwell time was 4.5 minutes and the average number of page views per user was 3- showing that users were highly engaged in the site.
The application allowed many people to have an enhanced, better experience of the Marathon thanks to adidas.
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