Bookies Betfair gave London Marathon runners the chance to back themselves with a free £20 bet, in this great charity campaign. Expect to see it on the shortlist of a PR award near you.
The brand set up a website, www.back-yourself.com. The site went live in the week leading up to the race itself, on which runners competing in yesterday’s London Marathon were given a free £20 bet on whether they’ll reach their target time.
If they managed it – the runner had to send a screenshot of their official time – the winnings and the £20 stake went to the runner’s nominated charity – if not Betfair donated the £20 to Cancer Research UK, the London Marathon official charity, instead. In short, the campaign guaranteed every runner earned at least £20 extra for charity.
The site asked runners to enter a number of details about their running history, training efforts, and target time and then calculated the odds of them hitting their target.
Big thanks to fellow ex-Franker Naomi Totten and Digby Brown Solicitors’ Neil Cardwell for emailing me with this.