London Marathon
Adidas
The Brief
Running the London Marathon is the ultimate expression of “Impossible is Nothing” –adidas’s brand theme designed to inspire all athletes to achieve. Carat’s brief was to raise awareness of adidas’s London Marathon sponsorship and inspire runners and spectators to achieve their dreams.
The Solution
In our conversations with athletes one fact rang true: athletes never achieve their goals alone. Achieving the impossible requires huge support and commitment from friends and family too.
Carat convinced adidas to harness this insight and empower every supporter to continue encouraging their runner on marathon day, helping them make it through the race.
• Mobile Runner Tracker: For the first time in marathon history, Carat set?up a real?time competitor?tracking system. Supporters could track exactly where their runner was on the course using just their mobile phone. A global media first, it enabled friends and family to ensure they were in the right place at the right time to cheer on their loved ones to achieve their “impossible”.
• Personalised Runner Messages: We hijacked the Cutty Sark – a major viewing point for spectators and a key TV coverage point – ensuring we generated mass awareness. We erected four large digital screens linked to runner recognition software. By recognising each individual runner as they approached via a chip on their running vests, the digital screens then delivered personal messages of inspiration by name to individual runners. The messages included encouragement from loved ones as well as our own inspiring messages – such as “Come on Sam James from Hillingdon, pain is temporary but pride is forever…love from adidas” – to create a personal relationship between runner and brand.
The Results
“Carat's response was not only innovative but demonstrated a clear understanding of athlete's need for support in achieving their ‘impossible’. The use of WAP / digital technology was not only a media first but enabled us to establish a one to one relationship with runners and spectators alike – a great endorsement of our side?by?side strategy. We’ll be using this for years to come.” Barry Moore, Head of Communications, adidas
The screens worked superbly. More than 5,250 runners received a personal message of support as they passed by, with every single runner seeing the huge banners.
The Cutty Sark site attracted more than 3,500 spectators and more than 3.1 million adults watchaed the activity on TV.
Almost 4,000 runners were tracked via mobile, with more than 107,000 page views on the day. Supporters used the site an average of 17 times per runner, demonstrating how rewarding they found the service. The whole campaign led to outstanding user feedback from our target group of runners and supporters: “My wife managed to track me pretty much all the way around the course with this... absolutely brilliant.” – John Murray, London.
Carat’s innovation delivered a unique communication channel for adidas, which they own and can reuse ever year. On a tiny budget and without wider advertising support, this campaign delivered our “Impossible” goal.