Long Island Marathon - Vision for an Event Within an Event

Strategic Pattern: 

Seeing opportunity and acting at speed

 

The Origin Story

The Situation:

• Exclusive Beverage provider for 5 Borough Bike Ride (40,000 riders)

• Rode entire route checking multiple activations at each rest stop

• Then to Long Island Marathon where we were small Snapple sponsor

• Arrived to find display in disarray - looked like tornado hit it

• Turns out: we were the only beverage at finish for 6,000-8,000 runners

 

The Strategic Decision: Race director impressed with our presence and ability to handle a crazy situation. The idea of us managing the post-race festival was born.

The Vision: Turn the post-race festival into an event of its own, its own sponsorships and a fun destination for runners, fans and their families.

 

The Transformation

The Execution:

• Repositioned post-race from logistics to celebration experience

• Built vendor, performer, beer garden and sponsor format

• Created brand sponsorship packages

• Procured and managed 50+ vendors and sponsors

• Integrated Snapple their allied brands and other clients throughout

The Results:

• Attendance for post-race grew to 20,000+ attendees, event expanded to 5 hours

• Grew vendor/sponsor partnerships for race more than 400%

• Secured preferential positioning for our own clients to guarantee anchor

• Turned overlooked space into regional signature event

• Created event within an event and kept race attendee level while competitor events were shrinking

​

The Strategic Pattern

Recognizing the moment and the opportunity.  See Marathon Video ("No hair, no makeup" - the reality of making a $300 deal with an event videographer to create sponsor interviews that became the event's new business video. Running on little sleep, no hair gel, but results over vanity.)

​

Recognizing the space that sits between data and human behavior. Runners run for balance, excited for fun afterwards and our festival with beer garden and experiential sponsor activations became an experience in itself that has been copied by others.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. A strategic decision made at the moment and speed of opportunity can be as easy as saying "yes, we can do that."

​