{"id":340271,"date":"2017-05-07T06:32:49","date_gmt":"2017-05-06T22:32:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/?p=1486289"},"modified":"2017-05-07T06:32:49","modified_gmt":"2017-05-06T22:32:49","slug":"nikes-breaking2-initiative-was-a-crazy-physical-achievement-and-a-brilliant-marketing-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/nikes-breaking2-initiative-was-a-crazy-physical-achievement-and-a-brilliant-marketing-campaign\/","title":{"rendered":"Nike\u2019s Breaking2 initiative was a crazy physical achievement and a brilliant marketing campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Nike\u2019s Breaking2 initiative<\/a> didn\u2019t quite reach its goal of breaking the two-hour marathon mark, but that hasn\u2019t stopped the company\u00a0from crowing about the results.<\/p>\n

Nike has been\u00a0working with three runners,\u00a0Eliud Kipchoge, Lelisa Desisa and Zersenay Tadese, to break the two-hour threshold. It wasn\u2019t just giving them shoes \u2014\u00a0a variation of the Zoom Vaporfly Elite<\/a>\u00a0\u2014\u00a0but also putting them through an array of tests and\u00a0creating race conditions (including choosing the right course, date and time) for optimal speed.<\/p>\n

The result? Well, Kipchoge was\u00a0the fastest\u00a0of the three. With a time of 2 hours and 25 seconds, he\u00a0not only\u00a0he beat his personal best of 2:03:05, he also came awfully close\u00a0to finishing under two hours. And that\u2019s\u00a0two minutes faster than the world record, which is held by Dennis Kimetto at\u00a02:02:57.<\/p>\n

And while Kipchoge didn\u2019t quite reach that official two-hour goal, Nike will get plenty of mileage from the event. It posted live video of the race on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a> and YouTube<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 on Facebook, as I write this on Saturday evening, the livestream has been viewed 4.9 million times, and a shorter clip highlighting\u00a0Kipchoge\u2019s finish<\/a> has been viewed 4.2 million times. (You\u2019ll probably see\u00a0plenty more ads featuring that clip.)<\/p>\n

It may seem kind of gross to talk about this achievement as if it was just a marketing campaign. But from Nike\u2019s perspective, that is<\/em> what it was \u2014 the company wasn\u2019t running\u00a0Twitter ads promoting the #Breaking2 hashtag all day on a whim.<\/p>\n

You might\u00a0feel even more cynical about the initiative\u00a0when you realize that Nike paid the three runners to skip the London and Berlin marathons this year<\/a>, and that\u00a0Kipchoge\u2019s time won\u2019t become the official world record, because the Breaking2 marathon used a non-compliant arrangement of runners<\/a>\u00a0who ran ahead to set the\u00a0pace and reduce drag.<\/p>\n