Title | RUNNING STORIES |
Brand | RUNNING STORIES |
Product / Service | RUNNING STORIES APP |
Category | A04. Early-stage Technology |
Entrant | BBH Singapore, SINGAPORE |
Idea Creation | BBH Singapore, SINGAPORE |
Production | FREEFLOW PRODUCTIONS Singapore, SINGAPORE |
Production 2 | CRYSTAL TECHNOLOGY SOLUTION CO LTD Hanoi, VIETNAM |
Post Production | FUSE ADVENTURES IN AUDIO Singapore, SINGAPORE |
Name | Company | Position |
---|---|---|
Joakim Borgström | BBH Singapore | Worldwide Chief Creative Officer |
Sascha Kuntze | BBH Singapore | Chief Creative Officer |
Lynette Chua | BBH Singapore | Business Director |
Dillah Zakbah | BBH Singapore | Creative Technology & Innovation Director |
Gaston Soto | BBH Singapore | Creative Director |
Omar Sotomayor | BBH Singapore | Creative Director |
Luke Somasundram | BBH Singapore | Writer |
Jia Rong Sng | BBH Singapore | Junior Creative Technologist |
Wendi Chong | BBH Singapore | Executive Producer |
Lesley Chelvan | BBH Singapore | Head of Delivery |
Lee Adamson | BBH Singapore | Front End Developer |
Asiya Bakht | BBH Singapore | PR Director |
Jason Denning | BBH Singapore | Photographer |
Zachary Desker | BBH Singapore | Junior Art Director |
Jonathan Gerard | BBH Singapore | Executive Producer |
John Hadfield | BBH Singapore | Chief Executive Officer |
Deng Hui Heng | BBH Singapore | Designer |
KC Hong | BBH Singapore | Copywriter |
Eddie Jackson | BBH Singapore | Operations Director |
Christopher Leow | BBH Singapore | Editor |
Sudhir Pasumarty | BBH Singapore | Digital Design Director |
Sean Thambiah | BBH Singapore | Digital Producer |
David Webster | BBH Singapore | Managing Director |
Yashanti Yap | BBH Singapore | Junior Copywriter |
Running Stories is a first-of-its-kind platform. It combines entertainment, audio and fitness, while incorporating real-time data to create an immersive experience. It makes you the protagonist in a gripping story, your own ultimate personalised adventure. Everyone knows Netflix, Spotify and running trackers, so this innovation is not in the tech, but the fact that it’s the first to merge these different technologies, typically made for passive consumption, into one immersive storytelling platform. It aims to become a revolutionary format for entertainment on the go. The initial reviews by runners and press prove there is a huge market for this offering.
We discovered a neglected audience of casual, unmotivated runners, who struggle to make running a consistent habit. After all, running can be boring. For that reason, they use audio apps to train - podcasts and music apps - as a form of distraction. We decided to create something interactive and exciting that encourages them to put on their running shoes, and help them create a habit. That’s how Running Stories was born. Running is the simplest way to kickstart healthy living, and has multiple benefits, like reducing the risk of cardiovascular diseases by 45% and helping you live longer. In 2020, as all of us were put into lockdown, the WHO advised people to go out and run to help cope with stress and anxiety. It became the perfect moment to launch Running Stories, as people were more willing to get out of home for a breath of fresh air.
Let’s be honest, running can be boring and monotonous. That’s why we created Running Stories. It mixes storytelling, fitness and audio like no other platform has done before, and it casts you as the protagonist of a gripping story by using real-time data. As a result, you get to listen to an augmented audio narrative that integrates with your surroundings and keeps you ‘enter-trained’ on runs. The plot points in the story are triggered as runners pass GPS markers and landmarks. Designed for beginners or seasoned runners alike, each story is made of binge-worthy episodic storylines that keep runners hooked and motivated to head out on the road for more.
Ideation & Prototype: November 2018 - First prototype April 2019 - Alpha prototype July 2020 - Closed Beta prototype Launch & Pitches: 10 October 2020 - Open Beta launched on iOS App Store (with a Singapore route) 13 November 2020 - Global PR launch 19 November 2020 - Start development of enhancements to include day, time, and weather for dynamic storytelling December 2020 - First round of pitches to potential partners 13 January 2021 - Start of Android build Future Milestones: February 2021 - Final integration of weather, day and time APIs for more dynamic storytelling, and completion of Android build Q2 - Q3 2021 - Launch one-story-two-cities prototype in NYC and Singapore Q2 - Q3 2021 - Scalable storytelling prototype powered by text-to-speech technology and artificial intelligence Q3 - Q4 2021 - Bespoke whitelabelled applications with select brands
How it works: Stories are told on a route using GPS trackers that are in-built in all phones. We turned these GPS markers such as landmarks, shops and streets into story data points. We created an app that controls this through a CMS backend that pushes hyper-localised custom audio tracks each time you pass our curated GPS markers. Runners will be treated to a tailored immersive experience through engaging storytelling each time they pass a GPS marker in real life. - Devices: iPhone 6s or later - Platforms: iOS 11.0 or later / Android version coming in February - March 2021 - Development stage: Open Beta
Running Stories has been covered by top international news and technology press, such BBC, Mashable, GQ, and Esquire, and also gotten positive reviews from top professionals in the tech industry. We have gotten interest from runners and running clubs globally - from London to Iowa, from Oman to Paris. Big international brands in sports, entertainment and technology have also expressed interest in collaborating and investing. In the upcoming 6 months, we’re building a smarter app by integrating more APIs to pull live data, and developing text-to-voice tech - powered by AI - to make it simpler for content creators to generate runnable stories for any route anywhere, turning it into an open source entertainment platform. We are planning for ‘multiplayer stories’, where runners play different characters and can interact with one another within the same story, and integration into wearable tech. These demonstrate the endless possibilities of this never-seen-before product.