While well known and respected among hard-core runners, Mizuno is a brand that flies under the radar for two segments that represent the biggest growth opportunities: casual “weekend warrior” runners and those new to running. Brand research showed that “I’m not familiar with the brand” was the single biggest reason runners did not try Mizuno shoes. With a small budget ($3 million media buy), we needed to drive brand awareness and familiarity by creating work that got talked about and shared.

Our brief was to connect with more people on a more emotional level by celebrating running’s power to transform the world.

In the running-shoe industry, the majority of marketing communications focuses on the impact that running can have on an individual in terms of self-improvement, self-reliance, etc. By instead discussing how running has the power to change the world, we were able to catch the attention of consumers in the marketplace who had come to expect the same old thing from advertisers. The aspiration and inspiration of our creative message connected with people on one level. But it was the use of data and statistics — the fact that we were proving what would happen instead of just preaching or imagining — that resonated and connected people emotionally with the thought of a world filled with runners.

For the duration of the campaign, we averaged over 12,000 site visits per day to MizunoRunning.com, which hosted the campaign’s microsite featuring the research and data included in the communications platform. That was an increase of +69% versus the 2013 average. Site traffic peaked at 36,000 visits on the day of the launch. Average time on-site was over four minutes and 30 seconds, an increase of 67% versus the 2013 average, as visitors spent ample time with the site experience, reading through all of the featured statistics. More than 72,000 Facebook fans were added and over 6,000 people tweeted with the hashtag, #IfEverybodyRan, in the first month of the campaign, many of them sharing individual statistics from the microsite. This led to nearly 25MM earned social media impressions. The campaign was featured in articles in the New York Times, Time, Ad Age, BroBible and Huffington Post, among others.

Hundreds of academic studies have been conducted on the beneficial effects of running. These studies tend to take a narrow look at a specific topic (e.g., the correlation between running and lowered incidence of heart disease or dementia). But no academic study had examined the cumulative effect of all of these benefits, and we thought this could be the basis of a powerful story for Mizuno, one that runners of all types would talk about and share.

So we commissioned a statistical analysis by graduate students at the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School — which Forbes ranks as the 11th best business school in the U.S. Their analysis drew from these existing studies on the physical, mental, emotional and economic benefits of running and extrapolated what would happen if they were applied to the entire U.S. population.

Data collected by the student research team was at the heart of the majority of creative executions in the campaign. Statistics discovered through the research were highlighted in the campaign’s microsite, digital banners and social posts. The communications platform was, in essence, the use of statistics found to educate the audience about the impact of a world filled with runners.

Following the commission of the statistical analysis, the student research team became an integral part of the final stages of creative concepting. As the results of the analysis came to light, the statistics were examined by the creative team and adapted to fit into the overall campaign’s communications structure. Some statistics were highlighted on the IfEverybodyRan.com microsite, while others existed merely in social posts or the final white paper written by the research team. All of the creative touch points of the campaign’s ecosystem were designed to expose consumers to the ideal amount and right kinds of statistical data, depending on the media in which it was consumed.