ČSOB Bratislava Marathon.
Performance
BeCool
Client introduction
The ČSOB Bratislava Marathon is an iconic cross-country race across Bratislava for domestic and international runners from more than 50 countries. It is a family running event in a city that loves running, where everyone who stands at the start and outdoes themselves is a winner. So far, 18 editions of the marathon have been held and more than 112 thousand participants have run more than 1.6 million kilometers.
Assignment
The pandemic years have had a profound effect on the entire world, and this race is no exception. Therefore, the organizers of the event decided to promote the awareness of the race abroad and in Slovakia and thus increase the number of participants in the race.
Objectives
The aim of the campaign was to spread awareness of the race especially in the surrounding countries and to attract more runners to this unique sporting event for fans of running and active athletes.
Strategy
We ran the campaign online only and before the campaign was launched, we created a strategy that took into account the advertising formats that are attractive to people on social media. We deployed advertising videos on Google, Facebook and Instagram. The campaigns were launched in 5 countries and 5 languages. The first phase of the campaign was launched in December, where we targeted people who would like to give the startup as a Christmas gift. In addition to interest-based targeting of new audiences, we also used a mailing list of former participants. From these, we created a lookalike audience on Facebook. The second phase was focused only on foreign audiences. We targeted it at acquisition and, to a lesser extent, remarketing audiences.
Visuality
We used realistic photos and videos with motivational running headlines in five languages.
Results
We were able to shut down the campaigns before the end of the event as the event filled to capacity. We therefore saved the client some of their advertising investment. The countries with the best campaign metrics, Poland and Hungary, had year-on-year increases in entry fee purchases of up to 462% (PL) and 200% (HU) respectively. Of the international entrants, the 2023 edition achieved 129% more starter fee purchases than in 2022. Overall, the 2023 edition achieved 50% more starter fee purchases than in 2022.