Betfair give London Marathon runners chance to back themselves in charity campaign
By Rich Leigh on Monday, April 27, 2015
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.
According to a spokesperson for the brand, they’ve hit £35,000 already, and will donate at least that amount to charity – ‘but now need to see how many people confirm their official time. They have until the 10th May to confirm – if they don’t their money goes to Cancer Research UK.’
Big thanks to fellow ex-Franker Naomi Totten and Digby Brown Solicitors’ Neil Cardwell for emailing me with this.
