The challenge was taking our idea and concept and turning it into a reality!

Breaking that down, there were several core challenges which we worked through with a world-class team.

The first was taking the concept from an idea into a fully functioning event without being able to reference previous events or previous content.

We also needed to reach our target audience (predominantly local Finns, plus a global reach for super fans wanting to travel to the event) and get them invested in the concept of reliving moments from the iconic music video as a fun run, packed with participants in fancy dress.

Addressing this crucial experiential challenge required us to immerse runners in the iconic music video's narrative – if you’ve not seen the video, think a foot chase, a mysterious briefcase, Matrix-style slow-mo shots and those legendary Darude sunglasses. This meant the Run team needed meticulously selecting the locations, incentivising the runners to bring props and go all-in on fancy dress, organising engaging pre- and post-run parties – all soundtracked by a specially curated Darude playlist (hint: every track was ‘Sandstorm.’)

Finally, we also needed to create a platform that would not only work for the inaugural Sandstorm Run event but could also be reused if the concept was to expand or repeat at a later date. We created a dedicated Sandstorm Run website for the campaign as away for us to show the world what Sandstorm Run represents and what they can expect.; this included a central location for our Paid Strategy Audience building, data collection and moving potential customers further along the marketing funnel towards becoming paying attendees.