I ain't no marketing expert, I'm writing this from a viewpoint of a sports enthusiast, a casual runner, a consumer and of course an all time "hype-monkey".
A Hype-Monkey is defined as A person who quickly buys into and acts on media or marketing hype by the Urban Dictionary.
Alright..here's what happened:
The largely popular and long awaited annual Nike We Run the City event for KL, Malaysia finally opened it's first day of online registration today at 9am after putting everyone on suspense for at least a month. Me and many thousands of others eagerly logged on after 9am to register ourselves. I was supposed to register for five other persons..guess what..I couldn't even get myself in after an hour!
The comment stream on its Facebook post reached over a thousand comments by noon, 99% were complaints about not being able to get through the registration process. Well, two of my friends managed to get through. So I kept trying on and off..but all I got was a blank page or black page, sometimes error message, sometimes it says registration is full.
At about 4pm, they announced that registration is CLOSED - https://www.facebook.com/NikeRunningMY
While I'm writing this, comments for that announcement reached 511 comments within an hour, again 99% were angry and frustrated participants who felt cheated by all the hype.
I don't blame them. I felt like a fool too. I don't believe that 15,000 slots can be gone in an hour. And how can a huge international brand like Nike have an oversight on not making sure the registration site doesn't get jam up?
Adidas didn't have problems. SCKLM didn't have problems. Energiser didn't have problems. So did many other runs.
Was it done on purpose? Was it all a marketing gimmick to create that Hard to Get effect?
In the first place, the whole programme was very much targeted to the younger group. Under 25 year olds gets a cheaper rate. Under 25 year olds gets to sign up in pairs at a even cheaper rate. And there were rumours that says that manual registration begun way earlier in school and colleges. And some also said that registration for the Under 25 category was smoother than the Above 25 category.
It's probably some marketing decision ..to go for the youngs. To educate the youngs about sports and running. An of course..they have higher purchasing power..bla bla.
Well, good luck....
May be it's true that there are volume from the younger group.
But seriously, I think Nike just pissed off the entire running community.
Hmm..or may be they realised much earlier that serious mature runners won't spend on Nike?
When I started running no one recommended Nike. In fact, even its own in-store promoters were not trained to give me proper advice on which model to get (I have complicated feet). So I never bought a Nike for serious workout.
However, being a hype-monkey, I'm still very much a Nike fan. My gym bag, my walking shoe, my wrist band, my cap, my socks my sports bras are all Nike.
And I just declared openly in Facebook that I'm not buying anymore Nike.
Hmm....now I need a new cap for this Sunday's Adidas run!
U all can get so worked up just for a run? Mmmm, why so worked up just coz u din manage to register leh? After all there are so many other runs out there. If your objective is to just get healthy and take part in marathons, then if Run 1 is not available, go for Run 2, Run 3, Run 4, etc lor
ReplyDeleteI guess I had so many experience with AA during their sales that this kind of thing is biasa for me already ;)
Yes, I won't deny that it's The most popular run worldwide because of the brand and the stuff that comes with it i.e. the unique tee, we don't mind going through a hassle to get to it because it's Nike. But..I personally think that it's not right to take advantage and play us out,just because it's one of the most sought after brand in the world.
Delete15,000 slots gone in under 6 hrs, come on..the youths may believe your gimmick..not us.
At this stage, it's no longer about not being able to register for the race, it's about integrity and sincerity, how they view the basic values of humankind.
Like you said, there are many other runs and brands out there..please don't ever play us out, wasting our time and effort by sending out false signals. I.e. if it's true that majority slots had already been allocated to the youths, should have communicated to us earlier what's the remaining slots available to public, so that we won't waste time fighting for something that isn't meant for us.
P/S: Adidas KOTR allowed more than sufficient time to fill up 10,000 slots in a fair and square manner. Go figure.