French Running Store DISTANCE’s ‘Outlaw Runners’ Leverages Roads Law & Paris Half Marathon Via Speed Camera Campaign

On the night of 31 August, Boutique French running store DISTANCE enlisted a group of runners to run through the streets of Paris at full speed with the intention of being captured by the capital’s new speed cameras – the aim was to get caught and fined for breaking the city’s controversial new low speed limit. The initiative, called ‘Outlaw Runners’, then turned the resulting speed camera photographs into ad creative deployed across social, OOH and in-store. The following week, the retailer leveraged the Paris Half-Marathon by setting up a speed camera outside its flagship store and challenging all passing competitors to have a go at breaking the speed limits themselves.

Territory: France

Agency: BETC Paris

Objective

The campaign, created by agency BETC Paris, set out to leverage the spiking public controversy and conversation around the new city-wide speed limits which came into practice at the end of August and limited all vehicles in Paris to just 30kmh / 18mph (controversial legislation is being seen as bad news for motorists who claim the city will grind to a halt, but as a victory for environmentalists) and then link this to a 2021 Paris Half Marathon activation in order to boost city-wide awareness for the sports retail brand by showcasing the store and its vision for running which is based on ‘uninhibited modern urban running’.

Activation

So the running retailer and its agency teamed up with a group of runners to run through the streets of Paris to use the low-set speed cameras to test whether runners could actually now go faster than drivers. Some of the runners involved were established elite athletes – including Lena Kandissounon (an 800m champion) and Quentin Malriq (a national 1500m champion) – while others were members of city running clubs.

DISTANCE then used the resulting speed cameras photographs set off by the runners for an outdoor guerrilla and social media campaign. Posters were also displayed in the windows of the DISTANCE store and on social media and the project was promoted through PR and social content.

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A second phase of the campaign, leveraging the Paris Half-Marathon – run on 5 September – saw the store set up a speed camera in front of its shop during the race weekend in order to let anyone test their own speed.

The campaign was conceived by ad agency BETC, along with production company SOLDAT FILMS.

“This new law got everyone talking in Paris. We thought it was the perfect opportunity to showcase our store and our vision of running,” commented DISTANCE Co-Founder Guillaume Pontier. “We believe in a running that is urban, doesn’t obey old traditions and uses modern codes.”

BETC President and ECD Stephane Xiberras added: “We love how this campaign plays with the news. Normally in advertising, when you want to create a print campaign, you call a photographer. Here, for the first time, the photographer is a robot, and more accurately, a speed camera.”

The campaign was created for Distance brand managers Guillaume Pontier and Lionel Jagorel by a team at agency BETC which included Agency Manager Damien Clanet, Executive Creative Director Stephane Xiberras, Creative Director Stephan Schwarz, Art Director Julien Vergne, Copywriter Alexandre Girod and Assistant Art Director Mathis Payet.

The production company was Soldat Films and the photographer was the Speed Camera MESTA 210C.

Outcome

The speed limit was successfully broken by multiple campaign-linked runners and, according to the agency, more than 1000 people participated directly in the campaign challenge while the PR and the campaign creative reach exceeded the entire 2.1m population of Paris.