How the London Marathon is accelerating its digital transformation

Alexandra Moorhouse
Alexandra Moorhouse
Marketing Director, UK&I
Length
7 min read
Date
25 May 2021

Inspiring a virtual world

Every year (apart from 2020) LME organises 13 world-leading, mass participation events in running, cycling and swimming. The profit from these events goes to the London Marathon Charitable Trust (LMCT) which uses the funds to provide donations and grants in the community. Together these organisations coexist to inspire activity: LME through its actions and LMCT through its contributions. COVID-19 related disruptions made it imperative for LME to accelerate experiences in ways outside of its physical events, and continue its charitable impact. 

“We’re having conversations on how to evolve our content. We are very email and written-focused as an organisation in terms of how we communicate with people, but are looking into alternative ways, which will allow people to digest content in different formats.”

Foster expands: “We’re prioritising video to tell our stories, and there’s so much to do in the space of inspiration and training plans. We’ve touched on using the audio functionality that we had in our app (we had scripted messages and crowd noises), and how to tie those together. We’re exploring how can we create a platform whereby if you’re running 26 miles virtually, your loved ones can send you messages that play and inspire you at certain points.”

Prioritising personalisation

Foster mentioned taking inspiration from The 2.6 Challenge and learning from the simple structure of the Couch to 5K programme. “One of the main reasons why it is so successful is the community and the support it builds around that. Creating content is important for us, but more so it’s about using it to drive a community; it’s physical, social, spiritual and good for mental health. That social element is never more epitomised than by the physical London Marathon, we need to use our content to try and build a virtual equivalent for that.

“We have such different people that participate in our events. We’ve got phenomenal runners, championship runners, good-for-age runners, very fast people, and the content they need is very different from the person who is doing it because they’ve been inspired by the loss of a loved one, or they’re doing it for some good cause that they passionately believe in. They may not be as comfortable with running a marathon and we’re acutely aware of that.”

The powerful personalisation capabilities within the Sitecore Experience Platform was one of the reasons why LME chose the platform to underpin its new digital strategy. It enables the organisation to view customers through a single lens and rapidly publish tailored content across multiple platforms. 

Taking it one step at a time

Moving to a more digital environment is an exciting opportunity for LME and has significantly helped to evolve its culture and organisational mindset. Its emphasis has shifted from planning and producing groundbreaking physical event experiences at peak points throughout the year into the never-ending digital world; where content moves fast and competing for attention is a competitive game, so the need to quickly publish content is imperative. 

Sitecore acts as the foundation to fuel this change in dynamics, and DEPT® is continuing to develop its multi-site solution. London Marathon was the first website implemented on the platform, followed by The Vitality Big Half, with goals to bring LME’s entire digital ecosystem together. 

Its social media platforms and third-party registration system are already linked into the centralised dashboard, giving Foster and his team the ability to make changes in real-time and continuously develop their transformation strategy. With this data, they’ve already seen how important a mobile-first approach is and are shaping its future around these insights.

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