Under Armour

Customer profile

Corrigan Sports Enterprises (CSE) was established in 1991 with the goal of creating, managing and implementing sports and event marketing opportunities for the corporate community. In addition to the Under Armour Baltimore Running Festival, CSE manages the Toyota Pro Beach Volleyball Series, Under Armour All-America Lacrosse Classic, and the Charm City Challenge presented by Converse. Through these events, CSE has generated nearly $100M in local revenue and $8M towards local charities.

Business Challenge

CSE, which owns and manages the Under Armour Baltimore Running Festival, projected 20,000 total runners to participate in the day’s five races taking place on October 10, 2009. The organization sought to harness social media to keep runners informed of crucial information as well as improve the event for runners and spectators alike.

“Part of our motivation to use SMASH arose from the changing landscape of the media, such as the declining influence of newspapers. We need to plan to supplement traditional media and how people get their information,” said Lee Corrigan, president, CSE.

Solution

Working with R2integrated, CSE was able present the festival online through R2iSMASH, a new social media platform. R2iSMASH drives interactivity around specific events, campaigns, or initiatives by combining feeds from popular social networking sites into one presentation window. An R2iSMASH site was developed for the Baltimore Running Festival which featured live streamed video, Tweets, texts, Flickr and cell phone photos, and blog feeds— all collected simultaneously, yielding a real-time gallery of event content and commentary.

Unlike most social media tools that push internal messages outward, R2iSMASH technology gathers external messages inward and neatly packages them for exhibition. By using R2iSMASH, CSE provides both festival participants and spectators with a unique and compelling way of tracking the event and sharing in the experience—live. Families, fans, and friends of runners competing in the festival were able to watch the scene unfold from anywhere in the world.