Tag: Rock ‘N Roll Marathon Series

The Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon Toyota What’s Your Sign Contest encourages participation from the community

For about the past five years we’ve been working with REACH, an experiential marketing and event management agency. Over the last year they have come to us for assistance for several promotions for their client, Toyota Motor North America, that are tied to Toyota’s sponsorship of the Rock ‘N Roll Marathon Series. We’ve been working with REACH on a new promotion that just launched last week called the Toyota What’s Your Sign Contest which will now be running till the late November.

Toyota became the official vehicle sponsor of the Rock ’N’ Roll Marathon Series back in 2015, and is one of several sponsors. The Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon Series has made running over 20 years now. The Series infuses each event with live bands, cheer teams and more. For 2018 the Series organizers, IRONMAN, are now promising to bring more music, better runner support, improved technology, and more community engagement to every event.

This year Toyota is continuing with their ROCK YOUR RUN theme. Runners and their supporters can find Toyota’s footprint at each event including at the finish line. During each festival in the 19 cities throughout the U.S., Toyota will have various vehicles on display and will offer fun games and also give out complimentary gifts. This new Contest was launched to coincide with the 2018 Humana Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicago race which was held this past weekend. The next event will take place in Dublin, Ireland, and then it comes back to the states on September 1st in Virginia Beach.

The Toyota What’s Your Sign Contest invites people to show off their best sign – motivational, inspirational or just plain funny. They are directed to the online contest page where they need to fill out the required fields on the entry form and upload a photo of their sign. The contest page includes photos of three different signs to help depict what the message photo should contain.

The one Grand Prize winner will receive a trip for themselves and a guest to attend an upcoming U.S. Rock ‘n’ Roll race that is scheduled to take place on or before November 30, 2019. The prize package includes the round-trip airfare for two to the race city, hotel accommodations for two nights and a $250 BROOKS gift certificate which is valued at $2,700.

The Contest submission period is open till November 12, 2018. Once that period has ended a panel of judges will review all eligible photos that were submitted and will choose five finalists based on the following judging criteria: 30% inspiration, 35% design, 35% originality and creativity. The photos from the five finalists will then be showcased in an online photo gallery and people will be invited to visit the gallery and vote for the photo they believe is the best. The voting period will be open from November 15 – 25. The photo that receives the most votes will be deemed the Grand Prize winner.

For this Contest we are again utilizing the Shortstack application in which we have built the entry form and are collecting all the entrant’s data along with their photos. I have given the REACH team direct access to the campaign as well as a separate, private, online page that was created so that they could view all the photos that are submitted in real time. Once it is time to judge all the photos, REACH will be able to share this page with the judges so they can chose the five finalists. At that time we will then update the photo gallery to display only the five finalists, add the voting capability and open it up for all  to view and vote. One vote per day, per person will be allowed.

All of Shortstack’s entry pages are mobile friendly from the start with Shortstack’s “One Campaign for any screen” design philosophy. Each campaign created is assigned a URL address which can be customized by adding text to the beginning of the address, but keeping the characters that where originally assigned. In this case Toyota wanted a fully customized URL address so we purchased www.Toyotawhatsyoursign.com and am hosting the page. We took the embed code from the Shortstack campaign and added that to the new online page. If you would like more details on how to set up a promotion utilizing the Shortstack platform, please feel free to contact me. It’s a great tool and it also includes a great team of support people.

Hilary Van Messel, Producer at REACH stated “Similar to previous contests, this Contest goal is to develop a following and spark action in the Rock ’N’ Roll Marathon community. Differently, this Contest runs for an extended period of time, so we’re promoting it in fun and different ways, including a cyclist in each of the cities who passes out little business cards that explain the Contest to the supporters on the sidelines of the race courses. We hope that people get excited to enter, whether that is through our promo work or the trip for two Grand Prize.” Currently there have been a few photos submitted to the Contest. The Contest is also being promoted on various online social channels as well as it will be featured throughout the year on the official Rock ‘N Roll Marathon Facebook page. 

Toyota invites people to share a photo of their favorite running spot in their Rock Your Run Sweepstakes

Another promotion that I worked on right before I left on my trip to Italy was the Toyota Rock Your Run Sweepstakes. We’ve been working through REACH, one of Toyota’s experiential marketing agencies, for about the past five years. Earlier this year they came to us for assistance for the Toyota Rock ‘N Roll Marathon Sweepstakes which is a year-long promotion which started in March and runs till the end of March, 2018. This is in conjunction with 21 Rock ‘N Roll Marathon Expos that are taking place across the country.

This is Toyota’s 3rd year as the official vehicle sponsor of the Rock ’N’ Roll Marathon Series. Inspired by the pulse of music and the energy of the run, Toyota’s theme this year is ROCK YOUR RUN. Runners and their supporters can find Toyota’s footprint at the indoor, 2-day Health & Fitness EXPO and again at the Finish Line Festival. During the 3 days, Toyota offers fun games and plays upbeat music, giving out complimentary gifts like a USB fan that attaches to your phone to cool you off and cinch bags with race course that are silkscreened live on-site. Plenty to offer all those involved in the Rock ’N’ Roll Marathon Series.

Toyota will also have various vehicles on display at these Expos and attendees will be invited to perform at least three different activities with one of the vehicles to gain an entry. Each Expo awards one winner a prize package valued at $300 which includes a pair of Brooks shoes along with some Toyota and Rock N’ Roll Marathon brand swag.

The next Expo is taking place in San Jose, CA, Oct. 6-9 and all are free to attend and open to the public. Each Expo is associated with the Rock ‘N Roll Marathon Series races taking place in the same city. These races started in 1998 as a marathon with bands along the course celebrating each participant. The entertainment has made it a music festival weekend that define the Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon Series experience. However, the fact that runners have raised more than $310 million for participating charities demonstrates how it has become so much more.  This year the series is celebrating 20 Years Running. Toyota is just one of the many partners such as United Airlines, Michelob, Garmin and others.

The Rock Your Run Sweepstakes is just running in the month of September. Hilary Van Messel, Senior Project Manager at REACH stated “The goal for this promotion was simple: develop a purpose driven contest surrounding a relatable question in order to spark a response from and encourage the Rock ’N’ Roll Marathon Facebook community.” The sweepstakes is being promoted on various online social channels. Thursday afternoon the official Rock ‘N Roll Marathon Facebook page posted this on their page which helped to boost entries:

TIME IS RUNNING OUT, ENTER HERE https://rockyourruncontest.pgtb.me/QdhSst FOR YOUR CHANCE TO WIN. Where is your favorite place to run? Toyota USA invites you to submit a photo of your favorite running destination, trail or path for your chance to win a Toyota Rock Your Run Prize Pack! One photo will be randomly chosen at the end of the month! Good luck and Rock Your Run!

For this sweepstakes we are again utilizing the Shortstack application in which we build the entry form and collect all the entrant’s data along with their photos.  I was able to give the Reach team direct access so that they could view the entries and photos in real time. All of Shortstack’s entry pages are mobile friendly from the start with Shortstack’s “One Campaign for any screen” design philosophy. Recently they have added some new features to the platform that make adding CSS coding very easy for those of us that don’t have much programming experience. If you would like more details on how to set up a promotion utilizing the Shortstack platform, please feel free to contact me. It’s a great tool and it also includes a great team of support people.

There are some great photos that people have shared with their entries and we’re hoping to get many more before the month is out. The prize pack is worth $450. So please check out the sweeps and if you like to run, share your photo.