Mizuno Running Mezamashii Project

Using A-list and long tail blogger outreach strategies, we were able to engage several thousand running bloggers through content marketing, online engagement, a influencer outreach, to garner earned media mentions on blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Daily Mile, and Facebook, that discusses Mizuno's Mezamashii online running club and shoe promotion. The campaign earned over 133 blog mentions and over 300 mentions via other platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and the like. The campaign resulted in spikes in both volume of traffic and memberships in the campaign. Brand awareness spiked as did organic online conversation and participation.

Gerris was chosen to do the dedicated and influential running blogger outreach.  We researched the list of bloggers to contact and did the first outreach requesting their physical address so that the lead agency, McKinney, could send them the hand-written invitation to the Mezamashii project.  We got a very good response and this first outreach already started the buzz in the running community.  There was a lot of speculation about the project and what we were sending them. They received a handmade, direct mail invitations and a code to order a free pair of shoes at the Mezamashii Run Project site.

We followed up with all the bloggers we had reached out to ensure that they had ordered their shoes and tracked all mentions of Mizuno and Mezamashii.  Brand favorability, which was reflected in comments made by Mezamashii Run Project members who rated the shoes they received, grew 54%, from 7% to 10.8%, in the first five weeks of media support. Of those Mezamashii Run Project members posting reviews, 94% gave top 2 box scores to the shoes and 93% said they intend to buy Mizuno shoes in the future.

The Mizuno Running Mezamashii Project won 5 Silver Effie awards and Mizuno was named Best Brand of 2013.