DBS: New Balance Case Study: Intersecting Physical and Digital Worlds

Almighty + New Balance / 2012 Digiday Brand

Summit

Hello.

We’re Stacey Howe & Ian Fitzpatrick.

From New Balance & Almighty.

OUR STORY

We’re here because our

teams built the first national

championship event to play

out live in social channels.

It’s a really good story.

OUR STORY

You almost never get to

watch brand perceptions

change right in front of you.

How could we take ownership of a premiere event from Nike, and build

brand awareness & sentiment among an audience we can’t directly market to?


Summit

How could we continue to drive strong associations between the New Balance

brand and technology - and raise the bar for ourselves in the process?


Summit


Summit

EXECUTION

We let every athlete connect

their bib # to their Facebook

profile, and set some simple

rules.

EXECUTION

For three days, everything they

did on the track found its way to

the people who care the most

about them.


Summit

EXECUTION

We connected start times and

start lists to trigger posts

notifying athletes’ networks

minutes before they would

appear on the live stream.


Summit


Summit

EXECUTION

We tagged athletes’ finish

photos, SmileBooth photos and

race videos, so that their

networks could share the

experience.

EXECUTION

We posted their results to their

streams in real-time.


Summit

EXECUTION

And we built profile pages that

contained all their content,

across multiple meets, that they

can access anytime.


Summit

EXECUTION

Our role was to amplify what

these athletes already do, not to

change their behavior.

EXECUTION

This kind of

engagement and

production requires

ongoing

management and

facilitation.

EXECUTION

Kids will connect, but they need

a compelling reason to do it.

RESULTS

We’ve done this together four

times:

Twice indoors, Twice outdoors.


Summit

OUTDOORS: GREENSBORO, NC

INDOORS: NEW YORK, NY

RESULTS

With 3000 athletes competing

over 3 days, we average:

137k page visits to the Facebook page

233k photo views

40k event video views

5000 photos in our Smilebooth


Summit

RESULTS

In the first 12 months after our

first Nationals activation: More

than 35,000 new likes of the

page and a seeds of a small

community that will help to

launch a larger one.


Summit


Summit

RESULTS

By creating content for both

athletes and their families &

friends at home, we added value

for both participant & spectator.

RESULTS

The success of this event is

about the athlete as

participant in a social

experience, not just the

audience or a source of

content.

“An observation from someone who knows the challenges of covering this

meet inside and out: The integration of results, photos, videos, Facebook

postings, FB wall comments, athlete activities outside of competition (like

hanging with friends in Smilebooth etc) at this meet is light years ahead

of anything else being done out there related to track meets, or even, I'd

venture, any major sporting event. Cutting edge. Credit to New Balance

for creating a 360-degree experience that sets the bar. This story should

be a must-read for the USATF and others.”

- Dave Devine, former editor of ESPN DyeStat and USATF official

RESULTS

We were able to acquire

ownership of the overall event

footprint, not just the venue.

RESULTS

We set out to elevate the value

of participation. The athletes

ran with it, adding value to

the brand story.


Summit

Documents

DBS: New Balance Case Study: Intersecting Physical and Digital Worlds