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Great Eastern tailors marathon to women [GALLERY]

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COMPANY:GREAT EASTERNEVENT:GREAT EASTERN WOMEN’S RUNDATE:10 NOVEMBER 2013LOCALE:SINGAPOREEVENT OBJECTIVE:To support Great Eastern’s commitment to women to live well, stay healthy and be empowered.EXECUTION:As part of its Live Great programme, Great Eastern organised the most recent leg of its runs.“The run is a key event under our Live Great programme and we use it as the perfect platform to gather women from all walks of life and encourage them to start and or maintain a healthier and active lifestyle,” said Colin Chan, chief marketing officer, Great Eastern Holdings.The brand extended personalised invitations to its business partners and the media via email. They were also hosted at the Great Eastern Live Great Hospitality Tent.Pre-publicity efforts included street banners that were also placed along key roads in Singapore such as South Bridge Road and Holland Avenue. Great Eastern also reached out to its target audience digitally via EDMs to past and present runners, social media pages such as the GEWR Facebook page, using a customised #gewr2013 hashtag on Instagram and on the website.The brand also worked with HiVelocity Events to have its social media team constantly run contests on Facebook to actively engage its runners. In addition, Great Eastern encouraged its runners to bring along their families on event day for everyone to enjoy the Race Day Carnival and the fringe activities.A key differentiator for the run is the series of fringe activities leading up to the event day that was organised for the runners and their families.Training runs, cooking classes, cupcake-making sessions, kick-boxing and Tahiti dance classes were some of the activities planned for the runners this year.The brand also engaged 21 female pacers for the 10km and 21.1km route this year. The pacers were handpicked by Team FatBird (a congregation of experienced distance runners) where they had to undergo two months of training for the event.All runners could also access the ‘Live Great, Look Good’ Powder Room, a feature unique to the GEWR, where they could freshen up with toiletries provided. Mirrors and wash basins were also erected for the women to use.[gallery link="file" ids="27522,27528,27532"]Families and runners alike were treated to Nando’s Chicken, hot dogs, ice cream and a variety of fruit. A Scrapbook-making competition, parent and child tele-match games and a Survivor Junior Obstacle Course were also held at the Live Great! Family Carnival Tent to keep them engaged during the run.[gallery link="file" ids="27531,27530,27529,27527,27526,27525,27524,27523"]Runners and their families could also pre-order a hearty breakfast spread, which the brand named The Live Great! Scrumptious Sunrise Spread that comprised scrambled eggs, chicken chipolata sausages, roasted tomatoes with oregano and more. This was served from 7am till the end of the race.RESULTS:The event saw more than 14,000 women taking part in the race.The Great Eastern Women’s Run Facebook Page saw a spike in ‘likes’ from 3,000+ to more than 8,600 as of today.There was also PR coverage across print (The Straits Times, Today), broadcast (Channel News Asia and radio) and online (Run Society). The brand also worked closely with key lifestyle bloggers for regular updates and bite-sized coverage on their blogs and social media pages.LESSONS LEARNED:One of the biggest challenges in organising the event was the volatile weather.Great Eastern overcame these challenges with contingency plans.“As part of our wet weather plan, we had ponchos available for all runners, staff, volunteers and even spectators on standby in case it was required. We also monitored the situation every hour and gave regular updates to runners via SMS and on Facebook so that they would not be kept waiting or wondering if the race was to be cancelled or not. This proved to be very useful as runners gave feedback that they relied on our updates on Facebook that morning,” Chan added.For future events, the brand strives to provide a race experience runners will not forget.The team gathered runners’ feedback via a post-race survey, as well as all involved in the event, from the organizing committee to the the volunteers and spectators.

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