Admittedly, I'm guilty of piling on the self-doubt and question if I have the mental and physical fortitude to train for a marathon, let alone run a complete 26.1 miles.
But thanks to Nike, I'm reassured that I'm not alone. There are millions of people out there just like me. We jog for exercise, but runners we are not! Nike is speaking is my language! And, if they're speaking your language too, lean in a little closer and check this out!
In true Nike fashion, they've come up with a fun, interactive way to speak to this segment and hopefully encourage them to look at themselves differently. Instead of plastering London with ads, Nike challenged their agency, Wieden + Kennedy, to create a game that would get London joggers to identify themselves as "runners". And voila, you have GRID Run Your City! Back in April, London hosted the first GRID competition around the London Marathon. Last week, the second GRID competition started. Here's how it works:
Nike has turned the city of London into a game board for a two-week competition called the GRID which the shoe manufacturer hopes will ultimately encourage young people who already jog for exercise to start identifying themselves as “runners.”
The company has broken the city down into its 48 zip codes. Each zip code (or “postal code” as they say in England) has four traditional phone boxes. Players compete by doing runs, which they start by going to one of the phone boxes, dialing a specific number, entering their unique identifier, and then following the instructions they're given, which send them to other phone boxes in the city.
Graeme Douglas of Wieden+Kennedy, which developed the game, wrote that when Nike approached them with the task of getting young people engaged in running, they didn’t have a specific idea about how to do that. “It was evident from the start that a message-based campaign wasn’t going to be enough,” Douglas wrote. “We needed to get people out and active; and introduce to them a new way to run.”
Douglas goes on to say, ”We decided the best strategic option to deliver this would be to augment the running experience; creating a layer of experience on top of the run that aimed to alter how the activity would be interacted with.” Hence the game. The current competition started last Friday and runs (no pun intended) for 15 days. Players, who can compete individually or in teams, get points, badges, and prizes for speed, routes, and “various unlockables,” Douglas writes, “that become apparent as the game unfolds.” As of this writing, the game had 2,834 players and 323 teams.This idea is absolutely brilliant!! I can't think of a better way to get people excited about running, than to create a challenge that actually requires them to run! It certainly beats those Reebok "Run Easy" ads that us NYCers suffered through a few years back. Nothing seemed easy about sprinting through the NYC streets, seeing your train arrive at the station, running up subway stairs as fast as you could, and barely catching your train. That's stressful as hell! But I digress. What I also love about GRID are the additional elements of the scavenger hunt which gives this competition an Amazing Race feel, coupled with receiving badges and prizes for check-ins. I'm not into Four Square because of the stalker vibe I get, but I'd still be all over this. And although you're competing, I don't get the sense that you'd feel like a loser if you came in last. Like the marathon, I'm sure you feel a sense of accomplishment regardless of what your finish time is. The idea is to just get out there, run, and have fun!
If Nike decides to implement this idea in NYC, I'd gladly lace up my asics and hit the streets! Who's with me?
Check out the GRID Facebook Page to see updates from runners!
PUSH PLAY: NIKE GRID ANALYSIS, GIRLS VS. BOYS
No comments:
Post a Comment