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Powerade Challenge expands its reach to Wellington, taps into Olympic elite

Kiwis have quite the penchant for running and even in the colder
months it’s not uncommon to see many a dedicated runner pounding the
Winter pavement. But while it’s all too easy to snigger as you drive
past in your heated car whilst stuffing a bag of chips down your throat,
Powerade is hoping to lure in these avid runners with its Powerade
Challenge after a successful debut of the event last year saw over 2000
runners take part.

The campaign, a
collaborative effort between Naked Communications and Coca-Cola’s agency
Ogilvy (though word has it there’s been a bit of a stoush between the
two over who deserves credit for the awards it’s been winning),
certainly got StopPressers talking
when we wrote about it last year. But whatever readers thought about
it, the campaign seemed to impress the advertising powers that be,
picking up Gold at this year’s CAANZ Media Awards and a Silver and
Bronze Spike at last years Spikes Asia Awards in Singapore.

The interactive running course is on now until the end of July when
the London Olympics start and this year includes an 8km course in
Wellington as well as the 9km Auckland course.

Each course has a
start point, a half-way point and an end point, each marked by a vending
machine. Runners are equipped with special RFID interactive wristbands
and to complete the course and be in the running for prizes, they need
to check in at each point by swiping the wristband on the interactive
vending machines.

Powerade is of course one of the official
sponsors of the All Blacks and while the All Blacks still feature
throughout the Powerade Challenge website (you can even download a
personal training programme developed by the teams’ strength and
conditioning coach Dr Nic Gill),  this year’s challenge seems to, not
surprisingly, have a greater focus on our Olympians. Gold medallists
Hamish Carter (triathlon), bronze medallists Nathan Twaddle (rowing) and
swimming champion Moss Burmester were the first to run the course this
month and their times are included as benchmarks on an online
leaderboard that displays runners rankings.

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