Case study on Almighty & New Balance's collaboration in support of the New Balance Nationals track meets, presented on December 4, 2012 at the Digiday Brand Summit in Deer Valley, Utah

1. Hello.
We’re Stacey Howe & Ian Fitzpatrick.
From New Balance & Almighty.
Almighty + New Balance / 2012 Digiday Brand Summit

2. OUR STORY
We’re here because our teams
built the first national
championship event to play out
live in social channels.
It’s a really good story.

3. OUR STORY
You almost never get to watch
brand perceptions change right
in front of you.

4. How could we take ownership of a premiere event from Nike,
and build brand awareness & sentiment among an audience we
can’t directly market to?
Almighty + New Balance / 2012 Digiday Brand Summit

5. How could we continue to drive strong associations between the
New Balance brand and technology - and raise the bar for
ourselves in the process?
Almighty + New Balance / 2012 Digiday Brand Summit

6. EXECUTION
We let every athlete connect their bib
# to their Facebook profile, and set
some simple rules.
Almighty + New Balance / 2012 Digiday Brand Summit

7. EXECUTION
For three days, everything they did on
the track found its way to the people
who care the most about them.
Almighty + New Balance / 2012 Digiday Brand Summit

8. EXECUTION
We connected start times and start
lists to trigger posts notifying
athletes’ networks minutes before
they would appear on the live stream.
Almighty + New Balance / 2012 Digiday Brand Summit

9. EXECUTION
We tagged athletes’ finish photos,
SmileBooth photos and race videos,
so that their networks could share the
experience.
Almighty + New Balance / 2012 Digiday Brand Summit

10. EXECUTION
We posted their results to their
streams in real-time.
Almighty + New Balance / 2012 Digiday Brand Summit

11. EXECUTION
And we built profile pages that
contained all their content, across
multiple meets, that they can access
anytime.
Almighty + New Balance / 2012 Digiday Brand Summit

12. EXECUTION
Our role was to amplify what these
athletes already do, not to change
their behavior.

13. EXECUTION
This kind of
engagement and
production requires
ongoing management
and facilitation.

14. EXECUTION
Kids will connect, but they need a
compelling reason to do it.

15. INDOORS: NEW YORK, NY RESULTS
We’ve done this together four times:
OUTDOORS: GREENSBORO, NC Twice indoors, Twice outdoors.
Almighty + New Balance / 2012 Digiday Brand Summit

16. RESULTS
With 3000 athletes competing over 3
days, we average:
137k page visits to the Facebook page
233k photo views
40k event video views
5000 photos in our Smilebooth
Almighty + New Balance / 2012 Digiday Brand Summit

17. CONNECT
COMPETE
COMPARE
See how you stack up against
RESULTS
Trackster keeps your
NB Nationals Outdoor friends, competitors, and history.
achievements at your Easily share your photos, videos
fingertips. and official race results.
Grab friends and strike a pose in
In the first 12 months after our first
the photobooth. The photos will
be uploaded to your profile for
you to share.
Keep your fans back home
Nationals activation: More than
connected with live video feed
and race results auto-posted to
your Facebook wall.
35,000 new likes of the page and a
GET TRACKING AT
NBTRACKSTER.COM seeds of a small community that will
help to launch a larger one.
Almighty + New Balance / 2012 Digiday Brand Summit

18. RESULTS
By creating content for both athletes
and their families & friends at home,
we added value for both participant &
spectator.
Almighty + New Balance / 2012 Digiday Brand Summit

19. RESULTS
The success of this event is about
the athlete as participant in a
social experience, not just the
audience or a source of content.

20. “An observation from someone who knows the challenges of covering this meet inside and out: The integration
of results, photos, videos, Facebook postings, FB wall comments, athlete activities outside of competition (like
hanging with friends in Smilebooth etc) at this meet is light years ahead of anything else being done out there
related to track meets, or even, I'd venture, any major sporting event. Cutting edge. Credit to New Balance for
creating a 360-degree experience that sets the bar. This story should be a must-read for the USATF and
others.”
- Dave Devine, former editor of ESPN DyeStat and USATF official

21. RESULTS
We were able to acquire ownership of
the overall event footprint, not just
the venue.

22. RESULTS
We set out to elevate the value of
participation. The athletes ran with
it, adding value to the brand story.
Almighty + New Balance / 2012 Digiday Brand Summit