Leave it to the Pros

2011 Platypus Hydration Leadville Team

So in my current job as the Division Marketing Director, Fire/Water, (MSR cooking, water filtration/Platypus hydration/filtration.) at Cascade Designs we have the the luxury of an in-house PR manager assisted by a PR firm. This combination ensures that we take maximum advantage of media opportunities in a variety of mediums for both consumer and trade targets. One of our 2012 marketing initiatives for Platypus Hydration/Filtration is the sponsorship of the Leadville 100 Race Series, The Race Across the Sky. Below I'll detail how we'll work together to maximize this sponsorship and the various opportunities that come with it.

The races in this series take place in the summer time nearby the town of Leadville Colorado located at 10,152 feet above sea level, the highest incorporated city in the United States. The original 100 mile Leadville running race was run 29 years ago as an event to distract the depressed mining town, and encourage the tough miners that had lost their jobs, to put down the bottle, and pull together to host the toughest endurance race in the world. Now in 2012 the race has evolved into a series of events and considered by many to be the toughest mountain bike and running races you can find. The race has become so popular that the main events sell out every year and thousands that have their heart set on competing are turned away.

Platypus designs and manufactures hydration and filtration products such as packs and water reservoirs that provide endurance athletes solutions for the treatment, storage and delivery of fluids during training, adventures and competition. In 2011 we entered into a sponsor partnership with the Leadville Race Series to associate our brand with this epic endurance event and to directly market to a core user segment for our product, the endurance athlete. So as we start out the new year we send out a press release to announce our sponsorship. This went out today to the outdoor industry and should post to the news outlets in our industry this week. Here is an example of last year's release: http://www.snewsnet.com/cgi-bin/snews/22096.html

The next component to our sponsorship is utilizing the 10 entries that we receive as a sponsor (these have value to our core customer as the 100 mile races are sold out) to recruit a impromptu race team that doubles as WOM ambassadors. Here is a link to a post from one of the riders on last year's team: http://jakemcburns.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=20:more-training-for-leadville&Itemid=156

We began our recruiting of the team today here:

Platypus Hydration
Want a chance to compete in the Leadville Race Series? Post a 60 second or shorter video our wall telling us how you’ll use Platypus Hydration products to help you train for, and race the Leadville 100 mountain bike race on August 11th, 2012!

We’ll pick the 8 best stories to build Team Platypus: you'll get a coveted spot in the sold out race, and we will outfit you with a team kit that includes a Platy Hydration pack! The lucky 8 contenders will be chosen on March 16th, 2012.
This plan seems to follow the 5 ts of WOM that we learned in our class. The promotion helps us create a relevant topic for our brand to talk about, recruit talkers, use social tools, participate in the conversation, and measure the response via Facebook activity. Let's just hope it helps us sell more products!