Contact
Kontakt

Gold Ribbon – 7 Marathons in 7 Days

About the client

Gold ribbon – 7 marathons in 7 days is a charity and sports event organized by Kristijan Sindik, marathon runner and organizer of Split marathon. The event lasted for seven days and the running action connected Split and Tivat in Montenegro. The entire route amounted to 295 km and consisted of seven sections, 42 km each. The interested donors could buy kilometres of the route, a minimum price of one amounting to 100 HRK / 15 EUR  with 295 km offered. All interested participants of the event were able to donate the funds directly to the account of the Children’s Oncology Department of the Clinical Hospital Centre of Split (KBC Split).

Challenge

As a former cancer patient himself, Kristijan Sindik decided to combine his passion for running and love for children and help the little fighters of the KBC Split’s Children’s Oncology Department. Given that his roots are from Tivat, he chose this city as the finish point of the charity event. Running 7 marathons in 7 days without major breaks is not an easy task, so before the start of the race a reasonable amount of fear was present of certain aggravating circumstances like arriving late to the finish line, injuries and similar. Nonetheless, Christian and his team had a higher goal – to mark the World Cancer Week and raise funds to purchase volumetric pumps and other medical equipment much needed by children struggling with cancer.

Solution

The first step in creating the campaign was formation of a recognizable visual identity and the hashtag #zlatnavrpca and #7maratonau7dana, as a link between all posts on social networks. Before the start of the race, the mission and vision of the campaign were introduced to Facebook users and they were invited to participate. This way, the followers of the action gradually increased. We encouraged the public to join the action and donate funds to help children at the Oncology Department of KBC Split during the entire race week, via Facebook, posting photos of Kristijan and his team and all volunteer runners who joined this action.

Live video clips at the start line of all sections, as well as those of the last few minutes before, and the moment of crossing the finish lines were posted on Facebook for all seven days. This way we tried to convey the live atmosphere to all those who are not able to run with Kristijan and the team on the sections from Split to Tivat.

The official start of the first race took place in Split on Thursday, February 4, 2021, at the Marjan gate at 7:00 AM. Numerous citizens came to express their support at the start line, HNK Hajduk’s captain Mijo Caktaš being one of them and Split’s Mayor Andro Krstulović Opara even ran a part of the first section with Kristijan. During the race from Split to Tivat, over 250 runners joined the action while those who ran the entire route from Split to Tivat with Kristijan were Rikardo Kuhar, double finisher of the IRONMAN World Championships in Hawaii, and Ante Bebić, triathlete and triathlon coach and marathon runner Helena Bule, ran the entire last day’s marathon. Mentioning the names of famous runners have additionally raised the coverage of the action and increased public awareness of the importance of helping children suffering from cancer.

Each section was announced by a press invitation and accompanied by a press release. In the period from January 26 to March 16, the campaign generated 189 announcements on portals, aired in 33 radio and 24 television shows, including the evening news of Nova TV, Dnevnik HRT, Dobro jutro, Hrvatska and IN Magazin. Also, 8 videos on the topic were published on Youtube media channels. At the beginning of the campaign, on January 26, the Facebook page “Zlatna vrpca – 7 maratona u 7 dana” had 650 followers, and on March 6 it reached 2551 followers, with an increase of 1900 followers in a little over a month. In that period, a total of 91,400 minutes of Facebook video were viewed, and the number of unique viewers was over 134,000. All Facebook posts totalled nearly 500,000 people and generated over 40,000 interactions.

Gold Ribbon – 7 Marathons in 7 Days received the world’s most valuable PR prize, the Golden World Awards for Excellence by the International Public Relations Association (IPRA) in 2022. 

Check out other successful stories

Pontus Pharma

Colosal – how irritable bowel syndrome pills became a pre-election candidate
Hrvatske šume

Forests fire prevention campaign “Recklessness is the First Spark”
Naturalis

Cetina natural spring water – from the depths of the Dinaric region to digital channels