Somewhere near the halfway point of last November’s New York City Marathon, a runner passed an RFID interrogator on the road that captured the ID number on her shoe’s RFID tag. Within seconds, a video of her young children appeared in front of her on a 20-foot LED screen, and she could hear them encouraging her on. This scenario repeated itself 7,000 times for as many runners, across three locations along the 26.2-mile racecourse. The Support Your Marathoner service was provided free by ASICS, a manufacturer of running shoes, apparel and accessories, using media, as well as software to deliver that media, from California advertising firm Vitro. For the 2011 New York City Marathon, ASICS intends to sponsor a similar service, utilizing the same RFID infrastructure to deliver content to the athletes, but with additional features.
For the past 14 years, Vitro has worked with ASICS to develop advertising and marketing strategies. Since 2005, says Tom Sullivan, Vitro Agency CEO, it has provided promotional media for marathons sponsored by ASICS.
The Support Your Marathoner system was the second RFID-based solution that ASICS and Vitro implemented together. The system took advantage of the RFID-based timing technology used by New York Road Runners (NYRR), the organization that manages the New York City Marathon. ChronoTrack has supplied the timing system for the annual event since 2009 (see UHF Solution Tracks 42,000 Runners at the New York City Marathon). The solution consists of a total of 46 Impinj Revolution readers installed along the course, with Impinj antennas running across the track itself, and each runner wearing a ChronoTrack D-Tag containing a ChronoTrack Viper ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) Gen 2 RFID tag (made with an Impinj Monza 3 chip). To accommodate the Support Your Marathoner service, ChronoTrack installed three additional Impinj readers and antenna strips across the track to read runners’ tags, and fed that data to a cloud-based server managed by Vitro, explains Dan Howell, ChronoTrack’s president.
The D-tag comes with a bib, and runners must remove the tag from that bib and loop it through one of their shoelaces prior to the race. As each runner passes over antennas at the beginning and end of the race, as well as at periodic locations throughout the course (at least every mile), the marathon management can keep a record of that individual’s running time, as well as ensure that he or she completed the entire race. Readers positioned along the side of the track collect all runners’ bib numbers (each ID number is also printed on the bib), which have been encoded on the tags, and forward those numbers to a ChronoTrack-hosted server via a GPRS modem. ChronoTrack software then links the bib number to the runner assigned that particular number, along with the time at which he or she crossed the line, and transmits that information to the marathon database.With the ASICS systems used in 2009 and 2010, the same tags were utilized to transmit data to the three additional readers provided by ChronoTrack and dedicated to ASICS. Just as with the other 46 read points, data was sent to the ChronoTrack server, on which software identified those runners whose bib numbers were linked to the data provided to ASICS. Then, in this case, the information was forwarded to a cloud-based server, hosted by Vitro.
In 2009, ASICS first provided a relatively simple service that displayed messages for runners, based on questionnaires they had filled out. Before the race, each runner was given the option of creating a message, by having his or her picture taken at a kiosk and answering questions, such as what motivated that person to compete (removing stress, for instance). Then, when the runner passed over one of three ASICS reader mats on the course, that entrant’s tag was read and the data was sent by ChronoTrack to the Vitro server, linking the bib number with that specific racer. Vitro software then caused that person’s photo to appear on a screen in front of him or her on the track, with a custom message that included the runner’s name, picture and a phrase, such as “Hello Queens, goodbye stress,” thereby marking that racer’s arrival in the New York City borough of Queens.
The idea began as a joke, says Bill Logee, ASICS’ marketing manager for running events, and not something that the team actually thought could be accomplished. He and his coworkers were brainstorming ideas to provide personal messages to runners, and realized that RFID technology would also allow the racers to receive messages along the course.
The 2010 version of the system offered a great deal more impact, however. In this case, friends and family began learning about the system in the fall, several months ahead of the race. The Support Your Runner solution was advertised only through the New York Road Runners’ newsletter, as well as via Facebook and other social media. ASICS used no paid advertising to publicize the system, Logee notes, and thus did not charge those who used the solution.
First, users simply logged into the Support Your Marathoner Web site, where they were instructed to create a seven-second video using the web-cam on their PC or laptop. On the video, each user could record a special message for a friend or family member running in the race. Alternatively, that person could take a photograph and provide an accompanying text message. That data was then linked with the name of the runner, who was also assigned an entry ID number, which would later become the bib number encoded on that runner’s D-Tag. Upon arriving at the race, the entrant would pick up his or her RFID tag and bib, attach the tag to the laces of his or her shoe, and then run the race, passing over three ASICS readers along the way—one in Central Park, another in Queens County and a third in the Harlem section of Manhattan. The battery-powered Impinj reader at each location captured the ID number of every runner’s tag, and then sent the numbers to ChronoTrack, which forwarded them to the Vitro server.Vitro software linked the video or pictures to the ID number, instructing the streaming of that video, or the display of the photograph, on a 20-foot screen positioned in front of the runners. Each screen was placed in such a way that the racers could see approximately six seven-second videos before passing. If more than six runners with video passed the reader simultaneously, any un-streamed videos would be placed on a queue in Vitro’s system, to be aired on the next screen as the runner reached that milestone. The third screen displayed videos that may have been on queue but had not been displayed when the racers had passed the first and second readers.
The quantity of videos shown increased later in the race, Logee says, with the majority of runners enrolled in the Support Your Marathoner program taking longer to get to the finish line. Most of the faster runners did not have videos played for them, so early in the race, ASICS advertising media was aired instead. Several hours into the event, he says, the screens began displaying the personal messages. “Since so many of the runners don’t have loved ones with them,” Sullivan states, “that’s what RFID added—it allowed people to connect emotionally with the runners, even if they couldn’t be there.”
This year, ASICS will begin enabling the runners’ friends and family members to produce videos much earlier, by making the Support Your Marathoner Web site available in May, though again, it does not intend to advertise the program outside of social media and the NYRR newsletter. According to Logee, this year’s ASICS offering is likely to attract more people due to the longer lead time for making videos, as well as the publicity that the program gained after being used in 2010. The video screens for 2011, he adds, will be larger, and perhaps more numerous, and the program may include additional functions, though he declines to describe specifics, indicating that plans are still under discussion. “This was obviously a hit, and we’ll continue to do it,” Sullivan says. “It’s safe to say if you enjoyed what ASICS offered in 2010, you’ll really like what takes place in 2011.”
For this year’s New York City Marathon, ChronoTrack will provide B-Tags rather than the D-Tags previously employed. The B-Tag (Bib-Tag) comes permanently attached to the bib, and is thus worn at chest level, resulting in a more precise time, since the race is considered finished when the runner’s chest (not foot) reaches the finish line. To date, Howell says, 1.5 million runners have used B-Tags in races throughout the world, and more than 6 million worldwide have utilized ChronoTrack’s RFID tags (both D- and B-Tags) during the past year.
Sullivan will describe the application in detail during the RFID-Enhanced Social Networking preconference seminar at this year’s RFID Journal LIVE! conference and exhibition, to be held in Orlando, Fla., on Apr. 12-14, 2011 (the preconference will take place on Apr. 12).