The Campaign

Branded Entertainment is not new in Japan, but it was never used in a live marathon race before. All advertising was banded by the city during the actual Kyoto Marathon race. No client was allowed to advertise their brand along the course. Only before and after the race were they able to. But our idea made us advertise during the race even with no brand logo.

Results

Chalenge and Goal: CW-X, a running wear brand, wanted to launch their new brand at Kyoto Marathon 2013. Strategy and Execution: Create a new communication no marathon runner has ever experienced before. First link your Facebook or Twitter account to a RFID chip, by entering your hopeful goal time at the special site before the race. Then all you had to do was just run with the RFID. Your RFID will tell you what your split time is, calculating how fast or slow you are against your hopeful goal time. Without using any smartphones to log in, the runners’ time was automatically posted on to their SNS every 10km, from start to goal, real-time. The runners’ families and friends saw the posted time wherever they were, and cheered for them through SNS. The SNS cheers were then re-written into a 2,000 year old traditional way. Onto Japanese handmade paper and ink. All by the calligraphy school teams in Kyoto city. The hand written cheers were posted on to Kyoto’s historical shrines, temples and walls, and also held by people who were cheering by the road side.

The runners who applied for the KYOTO MARATHON 2013 race all were checking the facebook page of KYOTO MARATHON 2013, gathering information about the course and weather. On this page we announced the new runners’ platform, SOCIAL_MARATHON in KYOTO. Through facebook and twitter the news spread fast about the new experience, and every single runner who had an account participated.

1,837 runners participated, 12.4% of all runners. 8,522 digital SNS messages gathered, transforming into traditional analogue cheers, filling the ancient Kyoto city with beautiful powerful calligraphy. Many cheered from far away cities like Tokyo and Hiroshima. Some cheers even came from abroad, like Taipei, Hawaii and New York. Many messages included “Emoticons”, a typical Japanese text messaging expression. This was the first time internet vocabulary was turned into traditional Japanese calligraphy. All in real-time. Creating a completely new way of running a marathon. All runners were amazed with the new running experience, and wanted to try again. Raving comments were posted on both Facebook and Twitter, from both the runners and the cheering family and friends. CW-X sold 90,000 USD at the marathon booth. And now they have a strong brand engagement with the Kyoto runners no other brand can bring.