On Marathons and Advertising

This one has been due for a long time. I'd saved this in my Drafts folder thinking that I'll write about this in detail but I've now resolved to write out things as quickly as possible. Originally, this post was meant to talk about unique advertising or what I'd like to call super-contextual advertising that I noticed during my first 25km marathon. I'll still talk about that but just to point out that since then I've completed a full (42.195 km) marathon. It wasn't the best run imaginable primarily because of the heat and humidity in Singapore and my lack of training but soon enough, I'll be going back to the drawing-board to try and finish a full marathon in under 4 hours. Hopefully, I'll do that run outside of Singapore (someplace much cooler preferably). Anyway, onwards with the original post:

I recently completed my first full 25km marathon in the 100 Plus Passion Run 2010 in Singapore. Amazing experience that and I'll chart my progress in maintaining a healthy lifestyle in a separate post. I wanted to make a note of some great contextual advertising I saw along the way.

1) Every pit stop I made, I noticed that the water served was tepid but the 100 Plus was chilled to perfection. When you're running and sweating like crazy, you can't help but mentally associate the isotonic drink with the perfect thirst quencher in the midst of rigorous exercise. I'm not sure if this was intentional or not. However, it did leave a mark with pretty much everyone I spoke with.

2) At the 20 to 22 km mark, I saw this banner ad for a sailing club in Singapore. I didn't take a snapshot of it (I couldn't given my condition in the last 30 minutes or so!) but I vaguely remember the message on it: "If you think this is tough, wait until you start sailing". Remember, this was the final stretch of the race and pretty much all runners were exhausted at this point but more importantly, they were on a high considering the achievement that awaited them across the finish line. For most of these adventure junkies, a message like that simply reinforces other activities that they've simply sidelined (or not considered). Certainly gave me a chuckle at that time and given that I still remember this after a year or so, it has certainly proved to have lasting appeal.

Some people might call this manipulative but that's an argument for another day. The point is that this sort of advertising is what is needed across the board. Online advertising, in my opinion, is useless in its primary task of promoting products. I had hoped that the Apple iAd platform would re-invent online advertising but it seems to be playing out in a niche market though the amount of attention Apple has paid to ensure that ads "look and feel good" is commendable. I'll certainly write in more detail about this soon.

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