The Campaign

GREEN LIGHT RUN is an urban marathon race, where the runner doesn’t have to stop for any red light. Using traffic data provided by the local police department, and taking traffic signal patterns, distance, timing and safety all into account, adidas Japan brought a one-of-a-kind, urban race through the busy streets of Tokyo to life.

Creative Execution

Traffic signals are the common “enemy” of any urban runner. Every city has its urban runners. They stop cars from crashing into each other. But they also stop urban runners from expressing themselves. They stop the free-flowing, pulse-racing, soul-releasing liberation of the unfettered true city run. Adidas offers solutions for all runners, and this was no exception. With cooperation of The Tokyo metropolitan police department, the city’s 15,772 traffic lights’s algorithms were analyzed for the cycles and duration of red and green signals. Using mapping data provided by NAVITIME, a leading navigation app maker, a full distance marathon course of 42.195km was designed in the center of Tokyo. 2/22/2017: Green Light Run movie released with an open call for participating runners, creating instant buzz. 3/10/2017: A full length marathon was held in Tokyo utilizing this digital system. Runners selected from across the nation followed the real-time navigation generated from the signal cycles and ever-changing traffic conditions. They ran the full 42.195km on Tokyo’s city streets without stopping at a single red light. Response was immense, and the buzz instantly went global.