Agency Spotlight - Flying Cursor - Standard Chartered Promotes #SCMM14 by Bringing The Runners Community Into Limelight

This is part of our Agency Spotlight where we bring forth agencies who are doing kickass work with their clients and helping them achieve their business goals. For this month, we’d like to showcase Flying Cursor. Read more about the agency here.

Standard Chartered’s Mumbai Marathon has become an established annual event since 2004. The initiative was also taken online on social media by their digital agency, Flying cursor. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have been picked up to promote the race and various online influencers have been roped in to support the event.

In December, a build up activity was also carried out on Social Media calling it the Good Deed Marathon.

Objective

The already popular marathon is seeking to engage with runners and capture in words, what the joy of running is. The campaign is also an initiative to connect with the runners community and celebrate the joy of running.

Execution

The Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon is already popular and a lot has been spoken about the diets and exercise regimes runners should follow. Thus, the brand wanted to do something different on Social Media. What better thing to do than to use this platform for engagement and that is exactly what the brand did.

They collaborated with Mumbai Runners, a community of runners based in Mumbai to promote the event. A few days back, folks from the brand also visited the Powai run and captured videos, images and spoke to the runners participating at Mumbai Marathon 2014.

Standard Chartered promoted #SCMM14 on its Facebook page through various post updates and made use of the hash-tag #SCMM14 for all conversations. The cover page was changed too. After shortlisting 6 runners from Runners community, the brand decided to profile them individually.

Apart from the usual updates, the brand also did a series of posts, some funny some inspiring to highlight various facts about running. The stories which were bite sized, were easy to glance through.

Along with post updates, a Facebook application has been created calling it Mumbai Marathon Runners Speak. The application invites stories from users who have to answer the question, what is their reason to run. The brand associated with Mumbai Mag, a digital magazine about Mumbai. Most popular stories shared by users have been featured on Mumbai Mag.

On Twitter, @MumbaiRunners has been talking about the event along with a lot of other users. Hash-tags such as #RunnersSpeak have been created to drive fun conversations along with #SCMM14.

There is another Twitter account called @RunSCMM which is also promoting the event. This handle is having good number of interactions too.

On Instagram, @MumbaiRunners, the account has been creating buzz about the runners who have been profiled through the images. This account shares tips and customized images of runners.

Positives

Roping in Influencers

Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon campaign has an integrated approach to it. Apart from promoting it on Standard Chartered’s accounts, the brand decided to rope in influencers and tie up with the runners community which is very interesting. Mumbai Runners is a great community to partner with since it portrays the true essence of the spirit within runners.

Mumbai Mag is a popular blog which narrates stories of the city. The brand associated with them to release a string of articles about the marathon and feature the stories that people have shared through social media. The blog also has a good presence on social media has been very helpful in promoting the entire event. They have been posting stories and tagging users while directing their followers to read them on the website.

Profiling Runners

The brand has taken an initiative to share branded images and profile 6 runners. This to me was an attention drawer. Since these runners were no stars and had been passionate about the sport, they deserved limelight which the brand gave them. Standard Chartered instantly picked normal every day runners and made them stars. Their reasons to run and qualities in turn inspire other runners and this is how the brand highlighted the crux of Mumbai Marathon.

These images have a viral effect since the participants are proud to share something created by the brand itself especially for them. It emotionally attaches the participant to the entire event.

Scope of Improvement

The campaign could have started a little earlier to create more buzz but nevertheless the campaign hardly lacks anything.

Conclusion

Overall, the campaign is doing well on Social Media. Standard Chartered Marathon which will be held tomorrow is all set to embrace runners from all walks of life and make them a star.