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Breaking 2: Why Nike wanted to break the sub-2-hour marathon mark
Nike and three world-class marathoners failed in their attempt to break the full marathon record timing, but what did they achieve?
The Nike Zoom Vaporfly Elite shoes have been three or four years in the making, but the brand got a perfect platform with Nike’s Breaking 2 exercise.
Breaking 2 had a simple mission. Break the world record for a full marathon and bring it down to under 2 hours. This would have been the equivalent of Roger Bannister running the sub-4-minute mile. The full marathon is just over 26.2 miles and the fastest time recorded so far is 2:02:57 by Kenyan Dennis Kipruto Kimetto, three years ago.
Mathematically, this was impossible but Nike and the three runners – chosen very carefully – Kenya’s Eliud Kipchoge, Ethiopia’s Lelisa Desisa and Eritrea’s Zersenay Tadese went for it. Each of them had skipped the Berlin and London marathon to participate in Nike’s event.
To promote Breaking 2, agency Wieden + Kennedy organised a holistic campaign around the event. Along with the runners what came into play was Nike’s innovative approach to the entire event – to establish its credentials as a serious athletic brand.
All three athletes were equipped with the Vaporfly Elite shoes that go on sale later this year. The run was broadcast on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. The broadcasts garnered over 486,000 views on YouTube and 5.2 million views on Facebook. On Twitter, the #breaking2 hastag is going strong. Nike’s experiment has even inspired rival Adidas to try out something similar.