Remember the days when you would do something (albeit, something challenging / crazy) because you wanted to, because you set a goal for yourself ?
Like when I decided to run my first marathon. That was the Paris Marathon in 2004. It was a challenge to myself, and I trained for months to complete it. Of course, I was so miserable during the race that I swore to myself that I would never, ever, run another marathon. And of course, immediately after I crossed the finish in just under 4 hours I thought “I can beat this next time!” and promptly signed up for the Chicago Marathon. Because I wanted to.
Well, it seems those days are over. I almost choked at the email I just received, with the subject:
VW Wants You to Run the Bank of America Chicago Marathon
Sir, yes, sir! Now a brand is practically giving me orders. As if it wasn’t bad enough that a brand was manufacturing demand, invading public space with logos and messages, sabotaging its own products to plan their obsolescence so that I would buy them again, making me feel inadequate, and generally brainwashing me into buying their product, now they WANT ME to do something. We have apparently passed a tipping point: we used to decide which brand we would purchase, which choices we would make; now it’s the brand that decides what we do. VW wants you to run the Chicago Marathon. I’ll line up and await further orders.
Also, note that what used to be the Chicago Marathon is now the Bank of America Chicago Marathon (after being the Lasalle Bank Chicago Marathon for a while). In fact, let’s take a look at the world’s largest marathons:
The ING New York City Marathon
The Bank of America Chicago Marathon
The Virgin London Marathon
The real,- Berlin Marathon (yes, the brand name is spelled real,- with comma and dash, which is probably the second worst rebranding ever after a-b glöbâl – and that was fictional)
The Boston Marathon (*phew*)
The Paris Marathon (*PHEW*)
The Honda Los Angeles Marathon presented by K-Swiss
The Chevron Houston Marathon
etc, etc… the list goes on.
Save for just a few big marathons (which are doing very well even without corporate sponsorship, thank you very much), it seems that participating in any of those makes you immediately subscribe to the brand that carries them. The city where the marathon takes place becomes almost irrelevant. I already disagreed, but vaguely understood, that sports arenas had corporate names – professional teams have sponsors. But when I run a marathon, for myself (not for VW), what’s in it for me that it is sponsored by a big bank? All I get is yet another marketing invasion on something that has nothing to do with the brand that it carries.
I really liked the Chicago Marathon – I ran it twice, both times setting a personal record and really enjoying the run. But this message really makes me never want to run it again. Shame.
