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adidas
London
Marathon

Our Insights

Nobody runs a marathon on their own – runners depend on the support of friends and family to reach their ambition The Marathon community extends far beyond the 35,000 runners, to hundreds of thousands who follow via online and print coverage.

The London Marathon is a pivotal communications event in people's lives which, in 2009, would lead to massive coverage on social media and blogs.

Our Strategy

Make adidas enable runners, by creating a mobile application that helps people to be a better runner by bringing them closer to supporting friends and family during the race.

Make adidas a crucial part of the conversation about the London Marathon on social media by giving the community something innovative and useful.

Our Solution

Adidas Runner Tracker We created an application that brought together RFID chips in runner's shoes, with timings mats every 5k on the course, with an adidas run tracker app, where supporters could enter a runner number to get the latest info on that competitor's progress.

Info included a mapped location, average speed and estimated finish time – meaning friends and family could be in the right place at the right time Supporters could also send personalised messages of encouragement to large digital displays around the course, that displayed as runners approached.

adidas.com Activation Visitors to adidas.com could use a slick Flash activation page to get instant coverage of the race In the same way as the mobile runner tracker, the web tracker allows the user to enter a runner number to get their latest marathon progress. `

Social Media Coverage News of the Runner Tracker tool was seeded on social media and runners’ blogs to drive usage of the app as well as conversations about adidas. `

On Twitter Targeted updates were sent out to influential/relevant members Search alerts were set up so that anyone searching for the Marathon could be contacted with a personalised message encouraging them to interact. `

All Runner Tracker Tweets included #LondonMarathon so the info showed up in Marathon search results including websites aggregating the Twitter coverage.

On Facebook: London Marathon facebook groups were used to post targeted messages promoting the service An official adidas London Marathon page also encouraged users to access the app.

On Blogs: Details of the service were posted to key blogs, and were picked up and re-posted by bloggers further down the chain Conversations were searched, monitored and managed to maximise uptake of the service by blog readers.

Outdoor + Print Coverage Huge outdoor displays at the event were used to encourage supporters to text RUN to 83040 to track friends & family Full back-page ads in the London Paper and London Lite prompted Londoners to visit the site and get involved.

Results

Over 500,000 people interacted with the adidas Runner Tracker mobile app in 2009. Over 1 million people were exposed to conversations about the adidas Runner Tracker via social media and press.

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