the consumer market and mass participation events an ...€¦ · • it’s a consumer market, the...
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The Consumer Market And
Mass Participation Events
An Opportunity For
Athletics?
Steven Seaton
Runner’s World
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Runner’s World is the world’s largest media vehicle on
and off-line in the specialist running space
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• We publish magazines,
websites and books in 15
countries around the world, 9 of
which are European
• We are more than publishers
we put on events, holidays,
training camps and offer on-line
training and coaching
• To understand our reach in the
UK we sell 94500 copies and
have 525,000 members on our
website
• All of our products are aimed at
practitioners - people who are
running rather than watching
others doing it
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We are about the activity of running more than the
sport - but the sport remains part of the editorial mix
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We’ve never had it so good
• Running is booming.
• There has never been a better
time to be involved in the
business of running
• We don’t know how many
runners there are but … races
and race entrants are at
historically high levels as are
every empirical measurement
connected with running
• This is a worldwide not just a
European phenomenon
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Who’s The New Runner?
• He’s probably male,
married, middle-aged,
middle class
• He’s an affluent, well
educated, relatively high
powered goal-orientated
individual
• He’s often a second-sport
runner
• Running isn’t a hobby
pastime it’s part of his life
• It’s a positive statement
about him as an
individual
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He’s running on his terms, when it suits him to fit in
with the demands and stresses of his life
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But it’s no longer just a male pursuit
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And times and performance are less important than
fun or other reasons to run
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What of the sport of running or athletics?
• It’s struggling
• Standards are falling, numbers joining the sport through traditional
areas are in decline
• The sport and its administration is increasingly an irrelevance to the
mass of ‘fun’ runners or joggers flooding into the sport
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Why isn’t the sport capitalising on the new runner?
• The sport’s administrators don’t understand their motivations
• The new runners are too old to fit into the traditional performance pyramid
• Outside of events they’re hard to identify and find
• The new runners think of athletics as an elitist pursuit
• They don’t appear to need or want anything
• Others are already catering for their needs
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Why should you be engaging with these runners?
• It’s not an opportunity is an
imperative
• They’re the mass market and
the numbers are only going to
grow
• They’re affluent … although
they’re discerning shoppers
• They’re an upmarket consumer
and more influential that you
imagine
• Many of them are parents eager
to introduce their children to
their sport
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How do you engage with them?
• Understand the power of marketing
• Accept that the rules of the game have changed
• Find out what they want not what you want to give or take them
• Be more creative and broaden your areas of expertise
• Embrace the technological world
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Understand the power of marketing
HellRunner
• Cross-country V Adventure
Running
• How Hell Runner reinvented an
old idea and made 10 miles of
tough, demanding cross-country
a compelling proposition
• 2003 one race 800 people,
2009 five races 10,000 people
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The rules of the game have changed
British Military Fitness
• UK running clubs are the traditional access point into the sport
• They are largely a passive force
• The new clubs are replacing them they’re gyms, running shops,
companies or BMF groups
• BMF puts on daily training classes, events, has social evenings
and singles nights
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Find out what they want not what you want
to give or take them
• Race for Life is the biggest race series in the UK
• In 2009 735,000 women took part in their races and it’s the best
beginners running programme in the UK
• The series should have been embraced and supported by the
governing body, but they fell out over the unaffiliated levy
• It didn’t need UKA to operate, viewed them merely as a tax authority
and now operates completely outside the sport
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Be more creative, but don’t forget the
obvious stuff
• It’s a consumer market, the new runners don’t necessarily need anything but they’ll buy into the right ideas and products
• There are countless opportunities to engage with this audience
• ParkRuns offer weekly, 5K timed free runs open to all ages and abilities
• Started in 2003 in with 13 runners and now has dozens of events all of UK with over 30,000 registered on its database
• It’s a community project, you sign up once on the website and then you just turn up and run at any of the events.
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Embrace the technological world
• On-line presents a whole new range of
opportunities to engage quickly and
effectively with this new audience
• The virtual club is a growing phenomenon
• Fetcheveryone.com is the second biggest
on-line running site in the UK
• It started as a evening project for a
committed but untalented runner and it
was purchased by Runner’s World in
2007 and now operates as a successful
profitable business
• It is a site where you keep a record of
your running activities and then analyse
and discuss your running with others
• Over 35,000 registered members use the
site every
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The mass participation
market isn’t just an
opportunity it’s an
imperative
You have to engage
with this market or you
will make yourselves
irrelevant
Thank you