1. Categorie:
Sponsoring campaigns
Title of campaign:
Nordea Riga Marathon - from local race to inernational recognition
short common description of the campaign::
Riga Marathon is the oldest marathon race in Baltic countries, established in 1991.
The race enjoyed popularity in the first years, with runners from all Soviet
republics coming to enjoy Riga's marathon. Due to economic and political changes
happening in Latvia in the 90-ties, the marathon and running lost its appeal. By
1999 the number of participants in Riga marathon had dropped to 61 (!) runners.
The window of opportunity for the development of Riga marathon re-appeared
again in 2004, when a new talented Latvian runner J. Prokopcuka appeared on the
international running stage winning one marathon after another (now a 2-time New
York marathon winner). Also, the economic situation seemed right to re-establish
the reputation and fame of Riga Marathon. Nords Event Communications (NEC)
decided to develop the race and entered into a long-term sponsorship agreement
with Nordea Bank for title sponsorship as well as Riga City Council for the
development of Riga Marathon.

2. research work done during the campaign:
Focus groups and quantitative research done at the end of 2005 clearly showed that
the main reputation problem of running was its perception as only a professional
sports discipline. The respondents did not think that running had any interesting
features, it was considered "physically hard", "boring", "outdated" and for
"outsiders", "running freaks" or "former sportsmen". Additionally, previous Riga
marathon organizers had earned quite anti - client service oriented reputation, and
the race itself was not even considered as a recreational sports activity. Research
also indicated that running had no "role -models" or popular persons engaged in
running, compared to other recreational sports like cycling, mountain-biking,
football and basketball, all of which had strong ambassadors to make them
popular. Internationally Riga marathon had no reputation at all, since the number
of foreign participants had been negligible.
strategy:
Campaign's goals were to increase the number of participants to 5000 in 3 years
and sponsorship marketing return for the title sponsor Nordea Bank and other lead
sponsors. Target audiences for the campaign were most active people,
international marathon tourists, corporate teams and general public - fans.

3. With the help of PR agency Nords Porter Novelli, a thourough integrated
marketing plan was developed, involving intensive focus on PR events and media
relations, sponsorship and branding activation, advertising as well as international
marathon marketing in 6 key running markets.
Communication highlights:
1)J.Prokopcuk was agreed to become long-term Patroness of Nordea Riga
Marathon becoming the first running "role-model" in Latvia. Her inspirational
commentaries, running insights were consistently marketed throughout the
campaign and appeared in specialized blogs, internet, printed media. The main
message was: "Running is for everyone. I started just like one of you"
2)"Running experiments" with celebrities - national leading media "Diena" was
agreed to participate in a running experiment, publishing running and training tales
of several well-known celebrity superstars. Many runners were surprised and
inspired by their stories and started their running "careers" just to able to run and
beat these personalities.
3)"Challenge your friend" campaign at the most popular internet-based social
network www.draugiem.lv (in Latvian "for friends", similar to LinkedIn) proved a
very powerful PR and word-of-mouth tool. Friends were encouraged to
"challenge" eachother, by clicking on eachother's profile to invite to participate in
the marathon. The biggest "challengers" were awarded air tickets from the official
marathon airline "airBaltic".
4)"Marathon Diaries" was implemented as a social project to develop Latvian
running culture together wih 5min, the leading Latvian morning daily distributed
for free. This included "runners stories", tips from celebrities, tips from other
marathons, volunteer contests, etc.
5)Corporate teams were invited by the patroness to take part in marathon thus

4. improving employee loyalty and letting them build better employers' reputation.
The highlight was inclusion of LNT TV channel news crew and celebrity show
leaders to participate in the race.
6)Special communications campaign "10000 Euros from Nordea for breaking Riga
marathon record" was marketed not only in Latvia but among the running society
in Europe, Africa and the US. A Kenyan athlete J.Changwony broke the record.
The record braking race received huge media attention and publicity as well as
good word-of-mouth, since Riga had not experienced Kenyan runners taking part
in the race. Phinisher's photo with huge Nordea line was published in all leading
national media as well as TV, blogs, internet.
7)Complex branding and promo activities - TV, radio and internet promotion,
on-site promotion, outdoor promotion in visible city centre places.
Results of the campaign and evaluation::
During the 2 year period the campaign managed to increase the number of
participants almost 7 times to 5000 runners. In only 2 years time, the marathon
experienced a massive transition from a small, local and poorly attended race to a
regional leader in mass sports events. Currently Nordea Riga marathon is the
largest public sports event in Latvia as well as the largest marathon in the Baltic
countries. Moreover, the massive running campaign has helped to re-create the
foundations of running culture in Latvia, with many other races now being opened

5. in Latvia's regions.
The media and publics quickly got used to the new prefix "Nordea" associating the
bank with the new qualities the race had gained. The number of Nordea
impressions in media and public accounted to marketing value of the race almost 2
times larger than the investment of the lead sponsor Nordea, therefore proving to
be a great sponsorship investment. During the 2nd year of campaign, many
established brands seeked out potential cooperation possibilities with the marathon
once again proving the uniqueness.
Finally, for the last race, the registration had to be closed earlier due to
unexpectedly large number of participants (the goal of 5000 runners was achieved
in only 2 years). Internet blogs were full with runners trying to buy race numbers
in "black market" - indicating the popularity and status of the race.