ESSAYS
JEROME HIQUET, CMO AT TOUGH MUDDER
Zappos; and, more recently, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel. I find it helpful to revisit them from time to time because it helps me to keep my focus on the basics.
Tough Mudder’s marketing is all about highlighting the spirit of camaraderie and triumph that comes with the challenge. How has digital helped you convey this? JH: It’s interesting to see how this plays out across channels. We’ve seen a lot of success with short videos on YouTube and Facebook—this is our highest- performing type of content and is effective at capturing the spirit of our events, as well as the inspiring stories of our participants. Across other channels, the focus is more on compelling photographs—our events are incredibly visual—or creating engaging copy with strong calls-to- action that convey the benefits of conquering the Tough Mudder challenge. No matter what the channel, the key is conveying the message that Tough Mudder is more than an athletic challenge—it’s a lifestyle.
How do you target people for whom the event wouldn’t be an immediately obvious choice? JH: An important component of our marketing strategy is to break down some of the barriers that might deter new participants from signing up. For example, people often feel they need to be an elite athlete to run a Tough Mudder, but we really believe that, with the right training and a supportive team, anyone can complete the event. To overcome this, we’ve created an easy-to-follow 28-day official training guide that offers the right exercises, tips and tricks to prepare for your first event. We also partnered with Virgin Active in the UK and Australia, and they have developed a class specifically for Mudders in training: the Mudder Maker.
This class is a key part of our strategy to give people the belief that they can complete a Tough Mudder by improving their fitness levels step-by-step in a class that captures the team spirit of one of our events.
People who have completed the challenge are eager to share that fact, posting photos and videos across social media. Does this user- generated content have a place in your overall strategy? JH:We are lucky to have a brand that inspires so much user-generated content, and it absolutely has a place in our overall strategy. Properly leveraging this can be a great tactic in terms of creating brand ambassadors and promoting authentic, genuine content that resonates with our audience. We incorporate user-generated
content into our communications in an ongoing fashion, through traditions like ‘Headband Mondays,’ where we encourage participants from that
You’ve managed to create a sort of exclusive group—the Mudders— across Facebook and Twitter, for people who have taken the challenge or are getting ready to. How important is this sense of shared achievement? JH:Tough Mudder is not a solitary event, such as a marathon, so there’s an intrinsic value to making the events team-based. This is one of the defining traits of Tough Mudder that sets it apart from all other events—when you run a Tough Mudder, you become part of a global community of Mudders who share your values of courage, personal accomplishment and teamwork. We’ve also got a group we call our Mudderators—a group of hardcore Mudders who run nearly every event in the UK but are also a very important part of the online community.
What’s the next digital step for Tough Mudder? JH:We’re continuing to explore new channels and new digital means for
Leveraging UGC can be great for creating brand ambassadors and promoting authentic content
weekend’s events to post pictures of themselves wearing their headbands to work the next Monday. We also look to user-generated content for more targeted, timely campaigns. For instance, after a large storm hit the Northeast US this winter, we launched #snowmudder, asking users to submit videos of themselves working out in the snow. We received quick results with highly engaging submissions that performed well across our channels.
communicating with current and future customers. We’re always looking at new ways to reach customers on social media with engaging content, and we often use company and community milestones as ‘tent pole moments’ to engage our network across channels. We are also looking to make sure we’re communicating with our Mudders wherever they are in the digital space, which means looking at different platforms outside of our traditional strongholds of Facebook and YouTube, but also making sure everything we do is mobile-optimised as more people are now interacting with us through their phones than through any other device.
toughmudder.co.uk
47 issue 25 july 2015
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