At New Balance, the idea of ”event coverage” looks one of two ways. The first is “If-Win” content, which denotes content posted when a key New Balance-sponsored athlete or team celebrates a major victory or milestone in their season. I work with the design, animate, and publish these as needed, in partnership with New Balance’s Athlete Activation and Sports Marketing teams. Sometimes the assets utilize existing photography (such as evergreen portraits), and other times I coordinate with a photographer who is physically at the event. Content is posted primarily on Instagram (across @newbalance, @newbalancerunning, and @newbalancewomen), and at times also reformatted for Twitter.
The second type is when I cover the event live, showing our audience step-by-step how it unfolds. This is my favorite kind of event coverage to produce: I love being able to show our audience exclusive event and athlete content, and I really enjoy figuring out how to storytell around these events so that they can appeal to runners and non-runners alike. Also, most events aren’t set up for premium video and photo content capture, making for a nice creative challenge in figuring out how to make the Instagram story retain an elevated look and feel. Here are some examples:
@newbalance: 2018 F1 eSports Series Pro Draft
@newbalance: 2018 New Balance 5th Ave Mile
@newbalancerunning: 2020 New Balance Grand Prix
“The F1 eSports Draft live coverage remains the most valuable real-time event coverage on @newbalance Instagram stories, gaining 175% more adjusted media value than the channel benchmark for Instagram stories.”