BMW has a rich heritage using data and technology to enhance performance in cars, whilst for runners, data is equally important to improve their run performance.

So, to earn a place in runner’s hearts, BMW celebrated the performance of each runner of the Shanghai marathon 2017 with a highly personalized artwork that expressed all their important marathon data. Together with renowned data visualization expert Joshua Davis we crafted an artistic visualisation based on captured time, distance, speed and calories.

The result was a digital platform with thousands of unique, beautiful 3D sculptures, that allowed runners to interact and discover every single details about their performance during the marathon.

Research shows that for endurance runners, data is everything. It’s how they manage exhausting training schedules, how they improve endurance, time and overall run performance. This insight brought us to consider how we could truly add value to runners on marathon day.

The marathon committee only tracks total time for the full race, so we figured that BMW, with their heritage in data based performance, could offer a true celebration of this epic accomplishment.

We found that almost each runner of the marathon trains with one of the 3 large running apps in China, which allowed us to target our audience. Through collaboration with Codoon, Joyrun and Rejoice we build a network that interpreted the different data streams we received for each runner over 42km’s into similar patterns that determined the artistic expression.

With over 20,000 personalized pieces of data art generated, more than 2 million views and a total of 1,344 BMW i3’s test drives, BMW China achieved its goal to bring joy to the runners as it does to drivers.