The Story

More fun. Less run.

This national charity event raises money to send children with disabilities to summer camps. Once the dominate event of its kind, the 24 Hour Relay had been facing increased competition from many new “fund-racing” events over the last several years and was experiencing a serious drop in participation. I was asked to create a campaign to reverse the slumping attendance trend, create top of mind awareness, and increase team participation by 15%.

While the theme is running, it’s not a grueling, athletic event as the name might suggest. I discovered that the average portion spent actually running, amounted to less than an hour per person. The rest of the time was spent partaking from a variety of alcoholic beverages and pursuing other non-sporting activities while waiting their turn to pound a few laps.

With this in mind, I created "More Fun. Less Run." Utilizing posters, radio and traditional media, the campaign exceeded all the client’s expectations. Not only did it stabilize attrition, the campaign actually increased team participation by 35% (double their goal) while raising over $1.14 million dollars to send kids to summer camp in the midst of one of the worst recessions in history.