Case Study: New Balance Nationals

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?


How could we continue to drive strong associations between the New Balance brand and technology - and raise the bar for

ourselves in the process?



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.


EXECUTION

We connected start times and start

lists to trigger posts notifying

athletes’ networks minutes before

they would appear on the live stream.



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.


EXECUTION

And we built profile pages that

contained all their content, across

multiple meets, that they can access

anytime.


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.


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


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.


CONNECTCOMPETECOMPARE

GET TRACKING AT

NBTRACKSTER.COM

Trackster keeps your NB Nationals Outdoor achievements at yourfingertips.

See how you stack up against friends, competitors, and history.

Easily share your photos, videos and o!cial race results.

Grab friends and strike a pose in the photobooth. The photos will be uploaded to your profile for you to share.

Keep your fans back home connected with live video feed and race results auto-posted to your Facebook wall.


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.


Technology

Case Study: New Balance Nationals