Situation:
The North Face is the world’s leader supplier of technically innovative outdoor apparel and equipment. The North Face has a team of more than 60 professional global athletes from around the world which includes snowboarders, skiers, rock climbers, mountaineers and endurance runners. Among the latter, Dean Karnazes stands out as the Ultramarathon runner par excellence, having completed several endurance events, most notably the Endurance 50: 50 marathons in the 50 American states on 50 consecutive days.
The main objectives of The North Face were:
- to present Dean Karnazes, the man and the athlete, to the Italian media and consumers;
- to promote the Italian edition of his best seller book, Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner;
- to increase The North Face brand awareness thanks to his athlete.
Strategy:
Since a preliminary study of Sound PR revealed that Dean Karnazes was almost completely unknown to the Italian public and journalists, Sound PR organized a promotional tour reaching Milan and Rome, the two main cities in Italy. An additional leg in Cortina was later added on, on the occasion of the opening of the local The North Face flagship store.
Nearly 6 months before the beginning of the promotional book tour, some preview copies of Dean Karnazes’ book were distributed by Sound PR to top sport journalists and VIPs connected to the “running scene” to make them acquainted with the athlete and his achievements. One-to-one interviews with a few selected major media have also been arranged in order to introduce the athlete at best.
After that, for each leg of the tour an adv campaign was set up, involving the local editions of Metro (free press in Milan and Rome) and a local radio station in Rome. In addition, a press release was distributed to free press and daily newspapers which published the news in their “local events” section: this helped a lot to increase the people attendance in Milan and Rome.
In order to reach the widest possible audience, two main target groups were identified:
- media representatives (journalists from newspapers and top sport/lifestyle magazines)
- consumers fond of marathons
Each leg of the promotional tour was therefore divided into two steps, with a press event (press conference or one-to-one interview) reserved to journalists in the morning, followed by a consumer event open to the public in the late afternoon. In between the press and consumer activities, a movie with Dean running through the most well-known places in Milan and Rome (Piazza del Duomo and the Colosseum for example) was shot.
The Cortina leg was structured in a slightly different way, in order to create one big event on the occasion of the opening of the local The North Face flagship store. After the press conference “Run for Fun” took place, a non-competitive race with Dean, the President of The North Face, other athletes sponsored by the company and a lot of fans. The Cortina day ends with a party in the local The North Face store. This multi-structured event made it possible to increase both Dean Karnazes’ popularity and The North Face brand awareness.
Results:
Before the start of the promotional tour, the launch of the press releases announcing Dean’s presence in Italy favoured the publication of several articles in the “local events” section of daily newspaper & free press titles.
During the events 13 interviews were organized: National TV La 7, Satellite TV Class Life, Radio Montecarlo, Radio Cortina
A lot of articles and interviews were published on:
- vertical monthly magazines
- lifestyle, men&women & sport magazines
- daily newspapers and free press
- TV and radio broadcasts
- online magazines
Number of journalists attending: 60
Number of clippings: 35 (50% big size articles – 1 or more pages with one or more pictures)
Equivalent adv value: Euro 645,765.00
(TV, radio and online excluded)
Tags: athletes, book tour, Dean Karnazes, Endurance 50, endurance runners, marathon, sport, the north face, Ultramarathon Man