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| Ironman |
Ironman - The Full Ironman Triathlon Brand
Anything is Possible!
How does this brand so succesfully translate what it does to its consumers and stakeholders through integrated media communication.IMC.
Simply put they provide a consistent, inspirational, motivational, aspirational and informative message across all their social media platforms.
What is the Ironman message?
Anything is Possible!
Take 3 minutes to watch this video before reading the rest of this blog!
This is echoed through the Ironman UVP(Unique Value Proposition), Ironman is a long distance Triathlon and not for the faint of heart. The UVP or USP was initially penned by co-founder John Collins who famously wrote on the back of a document. " Swim 2.4miles, Bike 112miles, Run 26.2 miles! BRAG FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE!"
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| Ironman |
This is the essence of Ironman, training hard for a seemingly impossible event and not quitting until you cross that finish line so that all bragging rights and honours belong to you!
There is a lot of light heartedness that you will find in amongst the ample motivational memes, quotes and official marketing, things like, "Almost Finished, Just a Marathon to Go" "Easy Day at The Office, Just a Swim, Bike, Run" these are often put together to add what one might term comic relief to what is an abundance of insanity.
This is what creates the brand resonance between the Ironman Brand and the Athlete and Stakeholders. The sheer emotion that one goes through in order to be both physically and mentally prepared for this event creates a love hate relationship. Months of Pain and ridiculous training times to get to that one day to cross the line and hear one of the Ironman Announcers shout your name with the phrase "YOU ARE AN IRONMAN" that is what drives the athletes, the volunteers and staff.
So how and where is all this emotional attachment and motivational content portrayed.
Ironman has an amazing social media presence through the following channels:
All links are live so please spend a few minutes having a look.
Website
www.ironman.com
IMEurope
IRONMANnow - this is their live race day video coverage page
IRONMANWorldChampionship - the FB page for the World Championships in Kona, Hawaii
Each individual event has its own Facebook Page
Instagram - Here is the Visual Motivation and Aspirational Imagery
@ironmantri
Twitter - This is the instant LIVE platform used for events and media releases
@ironmantri
Mobile App
Download from iTunes or Google Play and track Pros and friends and Family when they race
When one scrolls through all these platforms we see consistency in Brand Image and that the UVP is consistent throughout.
The binding theme through all the platforms is Motivation, Inspiration and Aspiration.
Ironman focuses not only on its professional athletes performances but probably focuses even more on the performances of it stakeholders known Age Groupers, these are the heart and soul of Ironman. Consider a sold out event has 2000 contestants of which maybe only 40 are professional athletes, the rest are everyday humans with a job and responsibilities like the rest of the world.
I have heard the term Iron Tribe been bantered around a few of these events. This shows that the brand resonates through its stakeholders of all divisions and age groups as ome of the oldest participating Ironman Athletes are in their 80's!
If I have to sum up how IMC is used across the platforms, then it would be this:
The Website is the Heart and Soul, it contains every single ounce of information regarding Ironman, from The History to How to Train for an Event to Registration for any event around the world.
From here we see the brand being reinforced largely through Instagram and Twitter, Instagram being the Visual, Motivational Communication Platform and Twitter being more of a LIVE Update Platform.
From here we move to Facebook where there is IRONMANnow where you can watch all event live. Each individual event has its own facebook page with unique, inspirational, and motivational information about that particular event but that is portrayed in the same vein as the all the other platforms. Once a stakeholder gets to these sites they have already found interest in the brand and this is where stakeholders start talking and living the brand. This is consstent with the Top Down 3 tiered approach of Integrated Marketing Communication whereby each level builds on another to reinforce the brand resonance.
Thus we can see that Ironman engages with its audience across various platforms for different purposes. Motivational, Inspirational, Aspirational and Informative.
There are currently 41 races around the world that allow for a total of approximately 82,000 people per year to compete in. That means that if you finish an Ironman you are in an elite group of roughly 0.001% of the world population who has that bragging right every year - That's pretty special!
The key here is that irrespective how much time you have on your hands there is a platform that allows the brand to resonate with the person looking for a new challenge or the current stakeholder seeking motivation to keep going or a potential Ironfan.
In closing we see that a Brand that costs a lot of money to enter and be involved in, takes up 20 hours of ones week with training for months on end, is probably one of the toughest endurance events on the planet, through its extremely effective use of Integrated Marketing Communication successfully attracts new stakeholders and maintains current stakeholders to the point where there are now new events opening around the world not just for the residents of those countries to participate in but for people around the world to participate in. Such is the Demand of the stakeholders on the brand.
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