Public Relations

Freihofer's Run for Women

A RUNNING SUCCESS.

For the 11th consecutive year, Rueckert Advertising provided public relations and advertising support for the 28th annual Freihofer's Run for Women held in Albany on June 3, 2006.

The venerable road race, which featured a record 10 Olympians, was memorable on many fronts. Not only did the race produce one of the closest finishes in recent years with Australia's Benita Johnson out-kicking the Ukraine's Natalya Berkut down the stretch to win the $10,000 first place prize, but the agency also helped generate the most international media coverage ever.

WE GOT IT COVERED.

To help those perform their best on race day, the agency established an interactive blog with the Times Union entitled, "Ready to Run," featuring an online network of athletes, nutritionists, trainers and physicians who answered a slew of questions for eight weeks prior to the race, helping to generate buzz leading up to the event.

We then secured 28.5 million impressions from 231 print and electronic stories pre- and post-event stories. Articles ran in major daily newspapers around the US and world, including the Associated Press, Sports Illustrated and on Internet sites such as the International Association of Athletics Federations, Athletics Australia, Track & Field Russia and ProRun.com (Netherlands). Race-day footage was also coordinated on national cable shows such as Running (YES Network) and Marathons+, which is distributed to 45 countries.

As always, the agency designed all the colorful graphics associated with the Run for Women and its three companion events - the Freihofer's Community Walk, Freihofer's Kids' Run, and the CapitalCare Health & Fitness Expo. The eye-catching graphics were displayed everywhere from newspaper ads and entry brochures to t-shirts and the press conference backdrops.

A RECORD-SHATTERING YEAR.

Working with a modest $15,000 PR budget, we obtained $564,657 in estimated coverage — a 3,764 percent ROI!

See our write-up in PR WEEK for the Run's 25th Anniversary.