Rock 'n' Roll Marathon Series
Through a strategic, integrated approach, paid media is flighted according to training trends and the specific registration process. Audience demographic and geographic targeting is based on historical registration trends, and CRM data is key to our strategy.
In addition to the annual promotion of the brand and individual race registrations, Zehnder is instrumental in driving registrations for Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon Series’ biggest sale day of the year – Global Running Day. On this day, RNR discounts all races back to pre-sale pricing and conducts a large (paid and non-paid) media campaign that capitalizes on this popular day in the running community. Zehnder managed the strategic planning and implementation of paid media for the lead-up and day-of campaigns with the main goal of driving registrations. Zehnder’s media team was critical for on-the-spot, “day-of campaign execution” including placing a Senior Digital Media Planner/Buyer onsite at RNR’s corporate headquarters in Tampa, FL for real-time monitoring and optimization. Additionally, back in New Orleans, the rest of the Zehnder media team was conducting real-time tracking and analytics in our Listen Hub®, to ensure traffic and conversion goals were being met.
For the annual brand and race-specific campaigns, Zehnder implements a combination of traditional and digital media.
Digital outdoor boards are chosen based on their locations within highly trafficked arteries in each of the target markets. Radio is utilized to support the other media and provide another touchpoint for the target audiences to be exposed to the messaging, build awareness and drive them further down the consumer conversion funnel.
Zehnder utilizes 1st and 3rd party data segments for audience targeting that integrates with our in-house demand side platform (DSP) for programmatic digital display placements. Audience targeting allows us to pinpoint audience segments based on interaction with our advertising and behavior on the RNR website. Conversion pixels are utilized for audience collection to strategically retarget audience segments, as well as heighten audience targeting programmatically within display.
In addition to display, Zehnder executes a full funnel strategy that includes: Pandora streaming audio ads, Under Armour native ads, Amazon Fire home screen takeover placements, paid Social Media and Search Engine Marketing through Google and Bing.
The RNR registration goal for Global Running Day 2019 was 26% more than 2018. Zehnder met the total registration goal for 2019. In fact, we exceeded it by 2%.