In a local sponsorship activation of an ongoing multinational campaign, 2008 saw Standard Chartered Bank leverage its corporate sponsorship of the Hong Kong Marathon to engage and support both the runners and the public that ranged from supportive TV and outdoor creative, to cheering buses, social media work and branded fluid cups.
The partnership, which has been in place for 11 years, typically sees the marathon play a key role in engaging the public with the bank’s ‘one-bank-one-team’ spirit as well as helping the bank to demonstrate their continuous commitment to the Hong Kong community.
This year the objective was to develop a communication strategy that not only brought new energy to the event, but also developed business for their key products.
The 2008 Marathon campaign needed to support the bank’s three product marketing campaigns– Marathon Savings Account, Marathon Trade Account and Marathon Credit Card Offers. All products have incorporated the values and spirit of the Standard Chartered Marathon.
The campaign had two key target audiences – marathon runners and the public at large.
The bank developed insights into these two groups that underpinned the campaign strategy.
Firstly, for the Marathon Runners’ group running a marathon of 10KM/26 miles is a gruelling endurance challenge that requires preparation, hard work, and dedication and to succeed runners must allow their passion and motivation for the race fuel their marathon training regime.
So the campaign aimed to encourage the runners and demonstrate the kind of emotional support that lifts spirits and creates motivation for a Marathon challenge.
Secondly, for the ‘Mass Public’ group, the majority of whom do not take part in the race, but who have mostly witnessed this big annual event in the past and many of whom have friends, family members or colleagues participating and want to encourage them with support.
So the media for this group needed to find an avenue for the public to become active supporters and encourage the runners.
So the sponsor and its agency teams developed a campaign to fuel the city and engage the public with marathon excitement through integrated, strategic, and innovative media channels and stretched beyond the usual on-course signage.
The runners were supported throughout the marathon process– from training day to race day– by cheering them on through strategic touch points.
The Marathon campaign promotion also drove traffic and business product enquires for the bank.
The campaign creative assets spanned TV ads,
and outdoor media (eg double-deckers buses, trams, shuttle-buses, the MTR tunnel and giant building walls) all communicated the same visuals of people cheering and supporting the Marathon runners.
A tactical short-term billboard was set up in the middle of a high traffic highway which turned the road into a Marathon racing track.
This tactic generated of a lot of curiosity before the event and gave the mass public a sense of participation each time they travelled through the highway.
To motivate runners to go further during training, a cheering bus was designed to target them at strategic locations.
Branded paper cups, normally used to carry fluids on race day, were strategically placed to spell out words of encouragement for runners.
The digital strand of the activation saw social networking sites, including Facebook, used to form runners groups, so that race participants might share marathon thoughts, news and gossip, while a Facebook application was also developed so that runners could create their own personal characters with photos.
The activation was developed with agencies TBWA Hong Kong and PHD Hong Kong and the key players included Kat Chan (Media Planning PHD), Cedric Lam (Media Planning PHD), Stephenie Lee (Media Buying PHD), Ray Wong (Media Planning PHD), Calvin Chow (Writer TBWA), Law Chi Hang ( Creative Director & Writer TBWA), Michele Hui (Client Service TBWA), Cindy Lam (Client Service TBWA), Joseph Mok (Creative Director TBWA), Ronald Trim (Art Director TBWA) and Esther Wong (Creative Director TBWA).
Comment
The campaign’s spirit and call for the people of Hong Kong to unify together and cheer for the runners and support them throughout the race aims to embrace the collectivist culture in Chinese societies.
While the innovative use of media channels was designed to speak to audiences and reach them on strategic paths, from training to the race itself.
From aspects like cheering cups to short-term billboards, several assets and ideas are new to commercial marathon activation.
This brand building campaign successfully involved the community on a mass scale, but also drove business results.
The Marathon spirit permeated both the runners and the supporters and The Standard Chartered Marathon succeeded in not only attracted local residents but also people from around the world.
Measured results included:
> 90% awareness of SCB’s sponsorship
> 98% awareness of the Marathon campaign
> 90% of the respondents felt that the Marathon enhanced Standard Chartered Marathon’s image and demonstrated its support to community events
The Standard Chartered Hong Kong Marathon, which first started in 1997, has achieved record entry numbers every year since.
In 2008 Total participants reached more than 50,000 runners took part.
It has become one of Hong Kong’s key signature international sporting events and is recognised as a ‘Brand Hong Kong Event’ by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government.
Links:
Standard Chartered Hong Kong Website:
https://www.sc.com/hk/ways-to-bank/online-banking.html
Standard Chartered Hong Kong Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/standardcharteredhk
Standard Chartered Hong Kong Marathon:
