The campaign was divided into two stages, starting with a ‘tease’, designed to create intrigue. This consisted of a number of elements, from traffic-stopping giant posters in city centre locations, featuring unbranded spoof visuals of the typical ‘high performance’ running campaign, to the installation of fake Run Easy street signs, and a new “reverse/cleaning” graffiti technique, acting as a final Run Easy reminder, all placed along busy running routes. Activity then culminated in the high impact launch, featuring ‘live’ climbers unveiling the campaign by spray painting the large format sites with Run Easy and Reebok branding. Stickers also appeared alongside the fake traffic signs, to establish the link between Run Easy and Reebok. This led to so much positive feedback from the running community that we then replicated the idea at the 2007 Hamburg Marathon, lining the route of the race with the mock traffic signs.

Post-campaign, 45% of the target had seen the campaign and 72% stated that they pitied the ‘hard-core’ runner, rather than admiring them!