New York City Marathon sponsors are finalizing activation plans for Sunday’s race, with the integration of new title sponsor Tata Consultancy Services a principal concern, since it is entirely a business-to-business play.
“We’re part of the largest industrial conglomerate in India and we’re the second-largest IT services company in the world [after IBM] with 27,000 U.S. employees, but most people don’t know that,” said John Lenzen, TCS chief marketing officer. TCS is in the first of an eight-year sponsorship deal with the NYRR.
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New title sponsor Tata Consultancy Services will be integrated throughout the New York City Marathon, including at the finish line.
Photo by: NYRR |
TCS wants to become embedded within the technological fabric of the race, and toward those ends it has a dedicated 12-person tech team, including one at the NYRR offices. Early tech innovations include a new mobile app and a “race predictor” accessed via kiosks at the Race Expo.
There also will be a
150-person TCS leadership forum Friday, with speakers including Malcolm Gladwell. TCS will run ads on the ESPN2 broadcast and local New York TV.
Not to be overlooked when it comes to activation is the fact that TCS Chief Executive Officer Natarajan Chandrasekaran is running the NYC Marathon, along with 350 other TCS employees. Between 300 and 400 TCS employees will volunteer at the race.
Lenzen described TCS’s primary objectives as expanding the brand, demonstrating community engagement, and engaging customers and employees.
Following the race, there will be some baseline research measuring awareness of the brand and the sponsorship. “The size and scope of our opportunities with customers have increased to where they are often board-level decisions,” Lenzen said. “So brand awareness is increasingly important.”
Other sponsor activation of note includes new sponsor Airbnb’s on-course “entertainment zones” in Brooklyn, Queens and Harlem where fans can watch the marathon, listen to music and sample neighborhood delicacies. The official “community hospitality partner” of the NYC Marathon also will support with TV, print and digital ads, said John Gassner, NYRR vice president of business development.
Longtime sponsor Asics is activating as usual at the Runners Expo and through a Facebook promo that offers runners a 3-D printout of themselves, which can be picked up at the Expo Store.
With a new title sponsor for the first time in 11 years, design elements for the race had to be reconfigured, which Ronnie Tucker, vice president of marketing, described as a joint effort with TCS. “We’re building a new brand, one that brings New York City to life,” she said.
Accordingly, the Statue of Liberty is incorporated in the new race logo and a graphic element incorporating multiple colors will be used in collateral material and in and around the race course, serving to illustrate the city’s diversity.
