Last night, I attended an event put on by Nike Running Canada that was fantastic.

Both as an attendee and marketer, I thought this idea was brilliant. Hosted by Josie Dye from 102.1 the edge and the Bloor St. Nike Outlet Crew. It was a free event for the public and all you needed was an iPhone or Android (if you didn’t have either you could still participate). 

The attendees were broken into 3 teams (highlighter green, pink & yellow) then each player was given a card with running directions and instructions to download the Nike Running App. When your team arrived at the starting point you pressed “start run” as the GPS tracked the various locations you were running around town. You ran as a group with the “Run Team” members who were spread out across the group to help motivate everyone (especially those who were lagging a bit behind and needed help pushing themselves)

There were clues when you arrived at various destination points with further running instructions and “hints” to help you figure out where the final destination was. Upon arriving you then climbed a shit ton of stairs before entering a room with a band playing, a bar (serving water, juice, etc.), a really cool photoshoot set-up and yoga mats in the next room incase some runners (who still had energy) wanted to attend a free yoga class.

As an attendee, I loved it.

Now from a marketing perspective…This event was a great way to promote the Nike Running brand across the city as well as utilizing social media to drive conversations. Nike offered participants the opportunity to tryout the new bright neon “lunar glides” and those that didn’t take advantage of the shoe rental, sported a highlighter band to show their team colour. In addition, we ran down Spadina, Bathurst, College and Queen (some of the busiest streets in Toronto). Observers were definitely curious about what we were running for.

From a social perspective, everyone was told to tweet the run once arriving at the final destination to spread the word #runnershigh.

And finally, what better way to promote the event and get it talked about then bringing in Josie Dye to participate and chat about on the radio in addition to posting on her twitter feed with +18,000 followers.

Overall, a great experience, a great idea and a ton of fun. There will be more “Missions” that Nike will be hosting around the Toronto area and from what I’ve heard, they get better each time. If you’re listening Nike crew PLEASE have water bottles ready when runners arrive at the final destination so we dont have to line-up when were dehydrated as fuck 🙂