In the Summer of 2010, New Balance announced a partnership with Good Form Running - a highly-regarded program designed to help runners adopt a more deliberate, less injury-prone running form. What had started as a class in the aisles of a Michigan running store was primed for a much broader audience. To that end, New Balance partnered with Almighty to bring the Good Form Running experience to life both online and on the road, creating content and experiences that would increase the program's reach and demonstrate the brand's commitment to the sport.
To demonstrate the nature of the Good Form program, we put two experienced runners through a transitional program over eight weeks. During this transition, each runner was given hands-on instruction with Good Form evangelist Grant Robison, and gave us daily feedback against more than a dozen qualitative and quantitative criteria. This data, along with form and stride analysis from sessions at the New Balance Sports Research Lab, helped to paint a picture of what other runners might expect from a transition of their own, and was chronicled online via a series of videos and infographics.
The second means of telling the Good Form story took shape as a custom experience developed with New Balance booth at major expositions and road races. Debuting at the 2011 Boston Marathon, the experience allows booth visitors to have their form captured, processed and analyzed on-site by trained Good Form Running experts - all in about 5-7 minutes. Footage captured on the treadmill is marked up in real-time using analysis software, and processed on a custom iPad application developed by Almighty. Wait time and progress information is displayed via digital signage throughout the experience based on registration and status information captured with the custom iPad application. In addition to in-person analysis, each participant receives both a comprehensive printed analysis and a private, dedicated page on NewBalance.com at which to view their form and recommended improvements.
