Standard Chartered Marathon

Standard Chartered Marathon will be on again this Sunday. It has become one of the biggest sports event in Hong Kong and participation grows year after year. It's a successful case of event marketing where Standard Chartered is able to make use of this event to uplift its brand awareness and leverage on it for promotions. The fact is that Standard Chartered has been sponsoring the event for more than 10 years. Unlike soccer and basketball, Marathon is not a spectator sport and it wasn't too popular at all back 10 years ago. If you were the corporate communication/marketing manager, would you recommend such sponsorship ? Probably not but someone in Standard Chartered did. 人棄我取, that's the name of the game if you want to own something unique. However, uniqueness doesn't warrant growth in popularity. With a bit of luck, SARS struck in 2003. Health consiciousness of HK people has been uplifted and there are more people participating in sports. Compared with other sports, running/jogging may be the most approachable sport for the general public as it requires no special equipment, venue booking or even company. Well, success doesn't come easy. Like other marketing successes, it takes long-term commitment of resources, insights and luck. 天時, 地利, 人和, sounds cliché but that's very true.