ADIDAS SUNDOWN MARATHON!!!

Introduction

Adidas Sundown Marathon is a sports community event, featuring a 42km marathon, an 84km ultra-marathon, Corporate Challenge Relay and Team Challenge Relay. The relay races are catered for teams of four, with every runner contributing 10.5km each to complete the 42km route. It is the first night marathon that has been held in Singapore and it attracted to over 6,000 participants. This event encourages the participation in sports activities for locals in the community. The team relay races can help to strengthen company and social bonds.

The route of the marathon is segmented into 4 areas: Strings of Light, Heartland Twist, Waterfront Trail and Homerun. A standard 42km distant would cover the stretch along the Changi Coast Road and East Coast Park Way, followed by Siglap Park Connector, Bedok Reservior, then through the heartlands of Tampines, Pasir Ris, Loyang and ultimately, terminating at Netheravon Road. The 84km contestants would do a second lap to complete their ultra-marathon.

Interested parties of the marathon who registered will need to collect their race kit at Mellenia Walk, at least one week before the marathon. The winners and runner-ups will be entitled to prizes, a medal and a certificate. Attraction prizes featured for the competition range from Adidas sponsorship contract to Adidas products to even an opportunity for another marathon overseas at Germany or New Zealand.

A trip had been made to the starting point of the race to witness the immense crowd and vibrant atmosphere albeit approaching the middle of the night. A large pool of contestant packed behind the starting line, anticipating the commencement of their thrilling 84km marathon.

Organiser

The organizer of this event is Hivelocity, a niche event organizer, focused on the sports industry. The company is divided to 2 sections – the ‘Brand Team’ and the ‘Event Team’. The ‘Brand Team’ markets and distributes top international sporting brands for performance sports, like Adidas. The ‘Event Team’ is responsible for sports marketing and sports event management. Altogether, both teams made exceptional efforts to assist Adidas Sundown Marathon to an impressive success this summer.

Organiser:

Title sponsor:

Stakeholders

Major stakeholders for this event would be its sponsors. The title sponsor is the worldwide renowned sports brand, Adidas. Other official sponsors include:

• Powerbar (sports nutrition like energy bar)
• Polar (heart rate monitor)
• Ultimate Direction (hydration pack)
• 100 Plus (hydration)
• Ice Mountain (water)
• Oakley (eyewear)

Other stakeholders include:

• Suppliers

Ø 100 Plus and Ice Mountain for drinks

Ø Subway for food

• Event partners

Ø Singapore Sports Council

Ø National Parks

• Government

Ø Mr. Teo Ser Luck (Senior Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports and Ministry of Transport and Member of Parliament for Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC) is the Guest of Honour for the Adidas Sundown Marathon

Ø Members of Parliament like Michael Palmer and Jessica Tan have shown their extensive support of the programme by taking part in it personally

• Reporters or photographers from the media

Ø Snap Shot

• Volunteers from the public who helped out at the event
• Participants of the race

• Friends or families who were there to support the contestants
• Companies that provided miscellaneous service

Ø Construction of tentages for shelter and stages for the presentation of awards

Ø Rental of make-shift tables, chairs, lighting, fans and barricades

Ø Rental of sound system and hiring the operator

Ø Printing of banners and billboards

Ø First-aid team by Healthway Medical

Ø Security and road traffic control by Cisco Auxiliary Police

Refer to http://www.sundownmarathon.com/index.php?page=sponsors for the complete list of sponsors and partners.

Role of Events to the Organiser

The role of the events can be Place Marketing due to the availability of sports events like the Sundown Marathon several times annually. The Standard Chartered Marathon, Swissotel Vertical Marathon and Aviva Ironman Triathlon 70.3 are few to name. This reflects Singapore as a society with healthy lifestyle and a sports nation. It also improves the quality of life and the population will be healthier and therefore have a higher life expectancy. Lastly, it promotes high cohesiveness in the community to participate in this event together. Hence it may attract athletes from other countries to a healthy and socially active Singapore.

The role of this event is also a tourist attraction, but just in a small scale. The Adidas Sundown Marathon attracted several foreigners to participate in it. Surprisingly, the winners of some of the categories were foreigners despite the fraction of them participating compared to the locals.

Adidas Sundown Marathon is also an Image Maker. Night events like this are quite rare in Singapore. This debut night marathon, as it spelled in its name, may spark off future endeavours of activities and events after dusk. This will make night life in Singapore more happening and may increase tourism receipts.

Target Market

The main target market of this event will be the athletes. They are always in regular training to keep fit for sports. They will also be looking forward to participate in events like the Sundown Marathon. The athletes ought to be very motivated and well-prepared for competitions like this and are widely expected to be the winner of the race.

Other target markets will include organizations like schools and companies. They might sponsor the registration fees of the competition to encourage participation. Both schools and companies will motivate its students and staff to take part in the race to strengthen relations within the organization. Winning the competition would be a big bonus as it brings pride to the organization as well as the individual.

Majority of the target market would be locals although there might be a small percentage of foreigners competing in this event. As this is event is based in Singapore, many locals in their twenties and thirties were seen in the race.

Marketing Strategies

The marketing strategy of this event is relatively poor. Firstly, the starting point of the race is rather inaccessible. The atmosphere is only lived up by the energy and passion of the participants and there were nothing else to look forward to in the area. Once the participants have left for the race, the location is quite empty and dull. Another to note is that Changi is not an attractive place to hold events as there was no entertainment there.

There were also no programmes organized to cater for the participants and visitors besides the race itself. It made the location a bore. It may be due to the incapability to promote the event extensively. Hence, the majority of the crowd was only the contestants. Furthermore, the registration fee for the race may be too high for some and it may not maximize the number of people taking part.

However, the partnerships that the organizers collaborated with are quite impressive. The famous sponsors and competent partners sure did attract some participants for the event.

I would recommend that the organizers should put in more effort on the marketing strategies. The location of the event should be convenient and well-known. There should be programmes and activities available to the people present at the event. Promotions should be brought to different sources of the media, like the Internet, television, newspaper and magazines. Billboards and banners can be put at several places with major crowd, like the city. Prices can be adjusted to cater for people with lower income group and has the passion for marathons. Packaging and distribution of products like the Oakley sunglasses can be improved to increase sales. Ultimately, if the event is exciting, more visitors, participants and even foreigners will be attracted to it.

Rating of Organisers of the Event

Firstly, crowd control for the area was relatively well done. There were road marshals to control the traffic at the roads that were occupied by the runners. This is to ensure safety of the participants, which is a plus point for the organisers. Barricades were also placed at several areas to ward off crowds from entering the race routes and for safety purposes.

The volunteers were distinctive with their Adidas T-shirt and a volunteer’s tag. This is important as visitors or contestants may need to consult the staff of the event for help. There were also several security officers stationed in the area to protect the event. Security is a crucial aspect that should not be dismissed by the organisers.

However, the place is relatively dim and a brighter atmosphere would be ideal for an illustrious event like this. More lamps or light-sticks can be placed around the area to liven up the setting. The visitors and contestants might feel more energetic as well.

The access to the event is also quite inconvenient. But the organizers did provide the shuttle service to increase accessibility. At the Changi area, there were no signs to guide visitors and contestants to the starting point. Those who were unfamiliar of the location might have difficulties finding their way to the site on their own.

The organizers did not allocate an area for visitors. There may be supporters waiting for their families or friends who were taking part in the race, with no place to rest. There should be a tentage available for the visitors such as the supporters and also for students like us. Food and drinks should be made for sale as the food and drink stalls there needed coupon from participants to redeem the items.

As a whole, the organizers had done quite well job to bring the event to a success, but there were some minor problems that have to be looked into, to further improve the event.

Security personnel in bicycles

Security personnel doing traffic control:

Safety road barricades:

Volunteer's tag:

Potential of Event to Meet Tourist Demand

Currently, this event does not have a high potential to bring in tourist demand as the organizers did not specifically target foreign markets. Nonetheless, the Adidas Sundown Marathon does have its own share of prospect in this industry to increase tourist demand for it. As marathon is a worldwide recognized sport, it is easier for promotion to take place.

Hivelocity can collaborate with foreign event organizers to hold a chain of marathons in many other countries, using same theme: night running. It can start off first with South East Asia, then to other continents like Australia, Europe then to America. Once there is enough recognition gained on the Adidas Sundown Marathon in other countries, the attraction of tourist to participate in the Singapore version will be easier. A message can be sent to ex-contestants to promote the up and coming Adidas Sundown Marathon in Singapore to attract foreigners to participate. Hence, potential tourist demand will exist.

More categories like duathlon and triathlon can also be opened to attract a diversified target market and to reduce boredom in the repetition of categories annually. Hivelocity can also propose help from Singapore Tourism Board’s subsidiary companies overseas to promote the Adidas Sundown Marathon to foreigners. Thus, tourist demand for the event will increase.

"Adidas Sundown Marathon" VS "Tourism Mission of Singapore"

Mission Statement of Singapore Tourism Board (STB): We develop & champion tourism, so as to build the sector into a key driver of economic growth for Singapore.

Besides coming up with more categories, Hivelocity can market the event according to the mission of STB. This event can be marketed to different countries in Asia by proposing to their tourism organizations to send in their top competitors for a friendly race which will be held in Singapore. This can strengthen ties among different countries as well as raising the excitement of the race with people of different countries, with different standards. This would probably make Singapore into a hub for professional marathons and it might even expand to other sports in the industry.

As the level of awareness increases, more tourists will be attracted to Singapore and eventually propel Singapore’s economy.

In conclusion, Adidas Sundown Marathon is considered a successful event. If the relevant recommendations are done appropriately, it will prosper and attract a larger market to the event the next time round!

APPENDIX

Pictures:

Adidas's Slogan:

An examples of billboard of sponsors:

Examples of tentages:

Stage:

Finishing line with timer: