April 5, 2016

According to Eventbrite, two of the best ways to increase brand awareness is through sponsorship and social media. Thus, choosing a sponsorship platform that includes social media is a no brainer. “Standard” race sponsorship methods like providing running gear, or embedding logos on race signs, lack the potential that is harnessed through digital assets shared by participants. Sponsoring Free Race Photos that are branded and socially shared by participants same-day of the event – brings new level of marketing benefits to race sponsors.

1 - Reach

The value of sponsorship is multiplied infinitely when participants socially-share their branded race photos along with their experiences. As each runner posts about the event, hundreds of impressions are made. As friends comment or like the photos, more impressions are made. With socially-shared branded race photos, sponsors are generating enormous reach – easily reaching hundreds of thousands (or even millions) of impressions in a mere 24 hours.

“For us as a brand, Pic2Go has been a key factor to maximize the reach that our events can have in social networks, the increase brand’s exposition and generates interaction with the sports community through authentic posts from the consumers themselves. In general we are happy with the service and confident to keep using it.”
—Nicolas Castrillon, Brand Manager, Nike Ecuador

2 - Engagement

Participants not only share their photos, but in doing so, also create a forum for engagement on social media. Sponsors benefit from this engagement as it gets the discussion buzzing around their brand.

South Beach Triathlon offered participants with Free Race Photos sponsored by ProAir RespiClick. Over 500 participants used Pic2Go to publish their branded photos to Facebook - sharing their achievements while driving an engaged conversation over the sponsored event.

Branded photos from the 10K Thailand Championship sponsored by Samsung Galaxy, were serviced by Pic2Go Thailand the first week of April. 5,000 participants shared their photos on Facebook, generating over 16,000 comments and 215,000 likes!

3 - Loyalty

What comes along with branded photos? Loyal customers. Athletes’ appreciation for free race photography goes beyond the event, they are thankful to the sponsors. Runners keep these photos that are tagged with the sponsor logo. Therefore, participants are constantly reminded of the brand’s involvement in bettering their experience.

“For the fifth consecutive year the McDonald’s 5K—Women Run achieved massive participation, therefore we wanted to continue to enhance the runner’s experience. Not only did the Pic2Go photos help improve the participants’ experiences, but they also allowed us to reach a mass audience online, giving us considerably more exposure than traditional more expensive media channels.”
—Renaud Copin, General Manager, McDonald’s Martinique

4 - Personalization

Advanced photo-tagging platforms, allow sponsors to tailor make their templates how they sit fit for branding purposes. The Samsung Tel Aviv Marathon has done just this using Pic2Go’s Multi-Branding functionality.
Pic2Go’s Multi-Branding enables personalizing the branding and marketing message according to specific parameters of each participant (as age, gender, running distance and more) – optimizing the sponsors’ targeting while improving race sponsorship ROI.

5 - Brand Image

Perhaps the most important additional feature of sponsored race photography is its association with advanced and innovative technology. Using Live Sharing technology or Performance Photos, like those offered by Pic2Go, builds a particular image for a brand. High tech companies dig Pic2Go because of its revolutionary and modernized approach.

“At Vodafone we strongly believe in the power of that individual to achieve any personal goal that he or she aspires to. Our sponsorship of the Malta Marathon is based very much on this belief. Vodafone's choice to use Pic2Go is a natural... We wanted to make the experience better by introducing Pic2Go and the Vodafone technology in the process. "
—Claude Muscat Doublesin, Brand Executive, Vodafone


Pic2Go Performance Photos at Vodafone Malta Marathon

Written by Sarah Marlowe - Marketing and Sponsorship Advisor at Pic2Go