Bitching Arena: The Adidas Sundown Marathon 2008

The event that I attended was the Adidas Sundown Marathon 2008. It is the inaugural night marathon in

Singapore

; so far it is the first and only one that

Singapore

has ever had. It is held on 31^st May 2008, and the first race flagged off at 8.30pm sharp. First hand experience has been gained through the site visit. The purpose of this field trip reflection report are to enable students to provide a first hand account of selected event, to identify the type of event under observation and its characteristics, to critic on the marketing strategies of the organizers for the chosen event and to recommend alternative strategies for effective marketing, to reflect and critic on the program and last but not least, management of the event and to consider the values of the event to Singapore’s tourism economy.

Although the Adidas Sundown Marathon is named ‘Adidas’ but the organizer is not Adidas, it is actually HiVelocity. HiVelocity is a company built on the pure passion and love for sports. It is a very sport minded event company. HiVelocity was created based on their convictions and idealism with a great deal of enthusiasm. The team is made up of very energetic and driven people who live in the Sports realm. They do what they believe. They bring energy to everything we do. And they are values driven. They provide knowledge and consultancy, market and distribute brands and organize sporting events. The company is split into 2 teams, the ‘Brand Team’ and ‘Event Team’. Like the team names suggest Brand Team markets and distribute top international sporting brands for performance sports, they don’t just market the product but also sell ideas and lifestyles. Event Team specializes in sport marketing and sport event management. A lot of their work involves cracking their heads for clients and using their creativity to stretch their client’s dollar to the maximum. A lot of their work also involves them to convince skeptics to allow them to do things, which others are afraid to do. This synergistic working relationship between both the ‘Brand Team’ and the ‘Event Team’ has given us superpower to inspire, motivate and create a great sporting experience for all.

The role of this Adidas Sundown Marathon can be served as a tourist attraction, not really an attraction, but rather an event. Quality tourists can be attracted to the event, be it participating in the race or just to watch the race. Hopefully the foreign runners and spectators will want to visit the place of the track or any attraction along the track and this could increase the number of staying days in Singapore. The longer they stay the better for us as they would increase their spending in our country with the increased days spent here.

Stakeholders of the event include the staffs (also organizing committee), volunteers, sponsors, runners, media, event partners, paramedics, security staffs and last but not least the supporters. All these people are concern about the happenings of the race and will want information regarding the race, be it for the same purpose or different purpose. Staffs (also organizing committee) are people from the event organizer HiVelocity. Volunteers are recruited by HiVelocity, volunteers are very essential part of marco event their involvement can constitute whether the event will be a success or not. Sponsors of the event includes title sponsor Adidas and official sponsors such as PowerBar, Polar, Ultimate Direction, Oakley, 100 Plus and F&N’s Ice Mountain. Runners are very important in any race event, without them taking part the race cannot take place. Media like The Strait Times keep runner and supporters update about the race and publicize it to encourage people to take part. Event partners include partners like National Parks Board and athlete’s circle, just to name a few. Paramedics need to know the running track so that they can station themselves so as to save or help anyone in case of emergency. Security staffs need to know the running track so as to control the traffic and maybe the crowd as well. Supporters need to know where to station themselves to cheer the runners on and also to know when is the prize presentation.

The target market of this marathon includes avid long distance runners for the 42km Marathon and 84km Ultra-Marathon, corporate people for the Corporate Challenge Relay and team members who want to compete as a team in the Team Challenge Relay.

The product of this Adidas Sundown Marathon includes Ultra-Marathon 84km, Marathon 42km, Corporate Challenge Relay (10.5km x 4 Runners) and Team Challenge Relay (10.5km x 4 Runners). If u want to race for your company or race together with your friends as a team or race as individual or even race longer than the usual marathon you can join this marathon no matter how u want to race it. Having these four races in place is a good thing so that the marathon can cater to different groups of people with different needs.

The place of the marathon which is the running track starts and ends at Changi Point. The tracks also cover places like Loyang and Bedok Reservoir, meaning to say the track is at the east side area of Singapore. Usually, marathons that takes place in Singapore the running track will be at CBD, like the Marina area, however, this marathon actually takes place at a more neighborhood place. This in fact can show or introduce the foreign runners the other side of Singapore, other than the CBD area we have something else to offer to them and will arouse their interest to visit this area.

For this race, the organizer, HiVelocity, incorporated with other companies for this event. The sponsors and the event partners are all mainly big names companies. Having big names companies will actually attract more people to sign up for the marathon and can boost exposure of the marathon. For example to say, there is a run call Adidas Sundown Marathon and another one call HiVelocity Sundown Marathon which one would you choose to join? Isn’t it very obvious that you will join the Adidas Sundown Marathon run rather then HiVelocity Sundown Marathon run.

Promotion works for the marathon is usually carried out from the marathon’s own website and on The Strait Times newspaper. Actually a blog like this can also used to promote the race. Can set up a blog to allow stakeholders to know the latest happening of the marathon and the blog can also allow people to write their comments or opinions. The blog can also be used as a tool to allow the organizer and the participants to interact, like participants can use the blog to ask the organizer questions regarding to the run.

There are four different races, in which three of them are flagging off at the same time. The three races that flag off at the same time are Ultra-Marathon 84km, Corporate Challenge Relay (10.5km x 4 Runners) and Team Challenge Relay (10.5km x 4 Runners). The Marathon 42km will flag off at the much later time, most probably due to the fact that this race will take a shorter time than the rest. Although the Corporate Challenge Relay and the Team Challenge Relay total running distance is the same as the Marathon 42km but they will flag off earlier with the Ultra-Marathon maybe due the fact that the participants in these two categories are not professional runners and maybe they do not usually run in such long distance therefore they may need longer time. Therefore the programming of the races flag off time is well organized after taking into those reasons into consideration.

The people who are directly involved in this race are of course the organizer staffs, from HiVelocity, and the volunteers recruited by the organizer. All participants of the marathon are the most important people of the marathon, as without the participants the race cannot go on. All sponsors and partners are also part of the event, with out their sponsorship and help the event would not be of such a great success.

The Adidas Sundown Marathon can either sign up online and pay by credit card or go down to the organizer office straight to register and pay for the fee. However, for the registration of the Relay races need to go down to the organizer office straight.

The Relay teams registration fee is the same through out the registration period, which is at $250. However, the registration fees for the other two races are different at different period of time. They have the Early Bird, Special Period and Normal Period price for the registration fee. For the Ultra-Marathon 84km the Early Bird cost $100, Special Period cost $120 and the Normal Period Cost $140. As for the Marathon 42km the Early Bird cost $50, Special Period cost $65 and Normal Period $75.

I feel that the organization of the event is quite well done. The races flag off time are well planned, taking a lot of things or rather facts into consideration. Races are also flagged off on time to prevent further delay for the completion of the race. Water booths are well situated along the race track so that participants can grab a drink and hydrate themselves while running. Security personnel are hired to control the traffic. Staffs and volunteers are all around the track and could assist the participants or anyone should they need help or have something to ask in regarding to the race. There’s always room for improvement that is well I would not say that the organization of the event was very well done.

I think the organizer should get the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) as one of the main sponsor so that STB could actually promote this marathon to other countries people more widely. Currently STB is only “In Support” of this event. If STB was one of the main sponsors they would have done big scale promotion of this marathon in other countries to attract more foreign runners to Singapore to compete in this event. The organizer should also have publicize the race more in Singapore, not much of the people actually know about this race until the later period where registration have already close in the newspaper. Attracting more locals to race in this event, the locals and the foreigners can mingle and the locals could actually act as an unofficial ambassador and introduce Singapore to the foreigners.

The tourism mission of Singapore is “We develop & champion tourism, so as to build the sector into a key driver of economic growth for Singapore.” Based on this tourism mission the event should be widely promoted in other countries to attract more foreigners than locals for this event to raise value of the event. Making this marathon more of an international marathon, which international marathoners could not miss. Foreigners should make up majority of the runners rather than locals. By attract more foreigners for this event, with foreign runners and their supporters arriving in Singapore we could make more tourism receipts, as the STB wants the tourism sector to be a key driver for growth for Singapore economy.

References:

http://www.sundownmarathon.com/
http://app.stb.gov.sg/asp/abo/abo.asp
http://www.hivelocity.com.sg/

Appendix: