New Balance, the official partner of the TCS New York City Marathon, applied an inventive algorithmic approach to part of its 2018 race activation when it used a compression algorithm to guide the editing process of its her 30-second commercial.
The sportswear brand’s multi-layered NYC Marathon activation was spearhead by a lead spot called #RoadToNYC.
To create a compressed cut down, New Balance used an algorithm created by Nielsen Consumer Neuroscience.
New Balance, which is the official footwear and apparel sponsor of the marathon rights-holder the New York Road Runners, used this tactic to maximise the effectiveness of its 15-second cut down spot.
The tactic saw the sports footwear brand use Nielsen’s neuroscience tools to mine consumers’ brain-wave data in order to determine the most effective parts of the video and to edit it down in a way that ‘cut through the noise’.
This neuroscience driven shorter cut wasn’t 100% prescriptive and essentially served as a guide for New Balance’s marketers and the creative team at agency VML: one that removed the ‘subjectivity and personal perspective from the process.
“We didn’t actually edit every single piece out,” said New Balance global consumer marketing director Allie Tsavdarides.
“We used it to inform what would be a little bit gratuitous versus what we knew would be impactful from a messaging standpoint. We were sitting in the sessions and it literally felt like we were in somebody’s mind and watching how they were looking at things. That was so unique. [Marketers] often have to speculate,” added Tsavdarides.
“The algorithm determines the peaks or highest moments of engagement for the ad,” explained Carl Marci, chief neuroscientist for Nielsen Consumer Neuroscience.
“The software identifies the corresponding portions of the video, literally edits it out into this compressed file. The output is essentially a rough cut of the original longer ad, and that rough cut is typically about half as long, plus or minus a few seconds, on how engaging that ad is. It’s a rough cut and a guide for the brand team and the creative agencies to make a shorter ad.”
Comment:
Nielsen says that it has been testing this compression algorithm across more than 80 commercials for at least 30 different brands.
According the brand itself, the test results show that the retested rough cuts of the 15-second spots sfore better than the original 30-second commercial 90% of the time (according to its own key performance metrics).
Thus the idea is that the algorithmically guided shorter ads can work harder.
This activation strand was only one phase of New Balance’s integrated, multi-platform marketing around the 2018 NY Marathon: which included a bespoke range of apparel.
It was back in late 2015 that New Balance signed on as a sponsor of the New York City Marathon in a 10-year deal that saw it replace incumbent Asics.
The financial terms of the deal weren’t official announced, but according to multiple reports (including by Sports Business Daily), New Balance is paying more than the $3m-per-year that Asics paid annually.
Among the other 2018 NYC Marathon marketing campaigns and sponsor activations that stood out was Michelob Ultra’s ‘Team Ultra’ initiative aimed to inspiring beer-loving runners (see case study).
Links:
New Balance
https://www.instagram.com/newbalance
https://twitter.com/newbalance
https://www.pinterest.com/newbalance
https://www.youtube.com/user/newbalance
https://www.facebook.com/NewBalance
VML
Nielsen Consumer Neuroscience
https://www.nielsen.com/uk/en/solutions/capabilities/consumer-neuroscience.html
TCS New York City Marathon
https://twitter.com/nycmarathon
https://www.facebook.com/nycmarathon
https://www.instagram.com/nycmarathon/
https://www.youtube.com/user/nyrrvideo
https://www.crowdrise.com/2016tcsnewyorkcitymarathon
New York Road Runners
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