Like 30,000 other idiots this weekend, I decided it would be a good idea to run a 10-mile stretch of Philadelphia as part of the city’s annual Broad Street Run. As much as I’d love to delight you all with a detailed, banality-filled recounting of my run, I’ll try to keep things relevant for once (don’t get used to it). Below is a short list of some of the promotional products the race gave out to participants before, during and after the race:
– T-shirts. Each racer was given a commemorative T-shirt prior to the run at the registration event. The shirts were manufactured by Hanes, and at least a portion of them were of the new-ish Tagless style. The medium and large shirts I saw were both tagless, but my XL size was not. I don’t know if this was true across each of these shirt sizes, or just the three I looked at. Besides the Broad Street Run decoration on the center chest of the shirt, there were race-sponsor logos on the shoulder of the tee. Off the top of my head, I can remember Dunkin Donuts and Independence Blue Cross being on there, but I’m sure there were others.
Performance tees were also offered at additional cost, but I didn’t get a chance to see them up close so I can’t comment on their make, design, features, etc.
– Also during the registration event, which was a day prior to the run itself, there were about 40-50 booths set up with the Lincoln Financial Center, each booth loosely selling some running-related thing. They had it set up like a weird gauntlet you had to walk through to get your badge and race-day information. I kind of had tunnel vision here, not having much interest in anything that wasn’t my badge or free T-shirt, but I did notice a couple freebie items being given out. The U.S. Army was giving out “support our troops” khaki silicone awareness bracelets and I noticed a high-end gym/spa handing out hand sanitizer pens attached to small flyers. Also, every booth had elaborate banner signage, most notably those comma-shaped freestanding banner-flags, which were all over the place in the hall.
– Before the race, everyone received a little opaque plastic bag full of race-day information. After the race, the same style of bag was given out, this time full of post-race rejuvenation goodies. The bags seemed pretty standard, just a basic die-cut handle and color race logo on both of the faces.
– At the end of the race, everyone also received a medal. About palm-sized, the medal had a nice design of City Hall on it, along with the name of the race and the year. It hung from a wide strap that was decorated with the Independence Blue Cross logo, which was the main sponsor of the run.
This is everything that I noticed, though I’m sure there was plenty of other promotional marketing going on. I hope this isn’t too boring, I just thought it might be helpful if you were curious about what kinds of sales opportunities are at these events or what people are actually buying.
Until next week!
MONDAY MIKE FACT: I finished the race in about an hour and 41 minutes, which isn’t particularly fast, but also 20 minutes better than I expected.
