nike human race: the day after
Yesterday, NikePlus put together a pretty spectacular international event. The Human Race. It's reportedly the largest race in history, and inspired more people to run a 10K race together than ever before.
Here's why this was an awesome brand event:
+ Nike has influenced thousands - maybe hundreds of thousands of runners to run a race for the first time. That's something that many beginners never achieve. Runners will always remember their first race, and now these runners will associate their first with Nike. That's a lifetime brand memory.
+ They tied in charities. Most community races benefit charities, so it's awesome that they incorporated that element here too. Raises awareness, raises money, and everyone wins.
+ They did great promotion, education and inspiration prior to the event. An excellent job promoting the event on their brand properties. They provided training for those that have never run this distance before. And they inspired people to try.
+ When participants completed the race, they received a free training workout download. Nice touch - while promoting Nike audio products at the same time.
Here's some things that Nike should consider for future events:
+ Distribute race numbers to those running the race. Over a million runners. That means that the majority of them weren't running in some of the official race cities. This was a race run in the suburbs, in the country, and small towns across the globe. Many runners collect the race numbers for every race they enter - so it's a cool brand opportunity. I ran the race in the burbs, and saw several other runners who I assumed might be running the same race...but there was no way to know. (Not only that - but you'd be collecting your fans mailing addresses at the same time.)
+ Allow more social networking. Let runners meet with people in their own communities and run the race together. Give them the tool to let them connect.
+ Work the PR angle more aggressively. This was a massive event. Granted, the news was busy with the RNC and hurricane coverage, but this should have been on every news station's sportscast, and the winners should be handled by PR agents just like olympic stars.
+ Create more features with the run results. It's just data - so why not let the users view it in more ways? Let them view by town, by state, by age, and other criteria. This is the value of an interactive race - so why not leverage it to the full extent possible?
Did you run the race? How was your experience? What would you have done differently, from a branding perspective?
Labels: branding, social media, sports marketing
posted by darryl ohrt @ 7:16 AM
6 comments
6 Comments:
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i'd also add that they should have more clearly articulated to runners uploading their runs to nikeplus yesterday that they should not worry if the run doesn't show up for an hour or two. i got anxious and called customer service to make sure my run would be logged because it didn't see it after a half hour. the rep was very gracious and said simply that it could be a few hours do to the high # of people doing the same thing. that type of info could have easily been placed on the results page rather than their more cryptic message: "don't see your run...check back later."
could have been more social (in many of the ways you outlined) but overall, a great time.
First a smally, niggly point. This year for the first time there were no training runs set up ahead of the race. Previously these were used by Nike to get people to road test its trainers, and created a good association between Nike and taking sports seriously, especially for the first timers. Not sure if having the training runs would've prevented the one guy I saw running in jeans, but you never know.
The second, major point was lack of communication about the race itself. When I signed up I knew the date and that it started at Wembley at about 6. The original FAQ said that we would be told our wave start times when we picked up our race packs, we weren't. So being wise we turned up at 5.30, we then waited over two hours to start never actually knowing when that would be.
I knew in advance there was a concert but foolishly assumed that would be to keep the supporters and later running waves entertained as everyone slowly set off. I was wrong, the concert started late and kept going until it's pre-arranged programme was done, only then did the race start at about 7.30.
Cramming the first two waves onto the hallowed Wembley turf I'm sure made a lovely picture, but did make it rather difficult to do the trainer led warm up without punching fellow runners.
I did the Nike night race a few years back, then we had luminous running shirts and a very, very well lit route. This time everyone was in dark red and the route was barely lit, torrential rain just after Wave 1 set off made it rather treacherous. The FAQ said that some people would be running in dusk. Everyone ran in the dark.
Another niggly point, again at previous races Nike has made it really easy to meet up with friends after the race by providing 26 different meeting spots, this year there was one impossible to find area.
Final niggly point - no medal as promised! Though the long sleeved running top is very nice and did keep me warmer than a medal would have done as I wandered around trying to find my friends after the race was done.
Whinge over. I'm just annoyed because Nike has done better and really let itself down with the London race, I really hope the other 24 cities had better organisation.
I can't imagine forcing runners to watch a concert before starting the race.
They'll need to keep their future events true to runners - and be sure that they're organized by people with a clue in the running community.
I literally laughed out loud at your 'guy running in jeans' comment. Hilarious. (And sad.)
Since that first race I've introduced friends and family the Nike 10ks, most of which were hanging around with me on Sunday night, we agreed before the race that we're not sure if we'd do another one in future.
And I almost laughed out loud at the guy running in jeans, but having done no pre-race training, I didn't have any spare breath...:)
As far as the actual race, everything in Chicago went relatively well. But there was one huge thing missing: The race lacked a global presence. I wanted to see videos from other cities - the people, the atmosphere, the route, the concert. With the exception of some verbal mentions of the other cities, there was little to no global element, which I perceived to be the biggest selling point of the race.
Throughout the race and afterparty, I couldn't stop wondering what London, Sao Paulo and Shanghai were doing. I think Nike really missed the mark by not making the world a little smaller for a couple hours during the race.
Now for something positive. Instead of providing paper numbers and race shirts, Nike printed the numbers on the shirts and that served as your ticket into the event. Unlike other races I've participated in, every single person was wearing the branded race shirt. And it looked pretty darn cool on the route. Even on the way to the event, the entire bus was filled with runners heading to the event, creating quite a buzz around the city.
Couple other suggestions:
- Offer free music downloads for all race participants, featuring the live performers in each city. Everyone loves free music and it's a great tie-in with the Nike+.
- Stream live concerts online for all runners who weren't in one of the event cities.