Threshold Sports realised there was something vital missing from its world-class events in recent years – a strong representation from women runners. With the help of Aspire, Threshold Sports took action to inspire women everywhere to overcome barriers to participation in ultra running and drive positive change in the industry.
Ultra running is for everyone
Threshold Sports create and deliver breathtaking challenges for the public, corporate and charity sector. Whether it’s walking 5km, cycling the length of the UK or summiting Kilimanjaro.
Since 2013, the company has consistently welcomed a higher participation of women in its events than the industry standard. But after Covid something changed. Female runners across all distances declined by 10% and at ultra events this was even more marked at 24%.
Threshold Sports decided to reverse this trend and tackle the challenges to female participation in ultra-distance events. And so the Ultra 50:50 initiative was born.
The campaign has an explicit goal to inspire, empower and enable more women to take part in events at the toughest end of the running spectrum.
Aspire was asked to promote this important cause and help turn Ultra 50:50 into a movement for positive change for the whole ultra-running industry.
“We often talk about safety in the physical sense but for so many women it is about emotional safety.”
Lighting the path for female runners
In partnership with SheRACES, grassroots running groups, female runners, as well as those not already in the running community, Threshold Sports began understanding what prevents women from taking part in ultra events, and planning on how to address these challenges head on.
Our strategy was to develop a PR plan to promote the Ultra 50:50 campaign and raise awareness of these challenges.
We also wanted to highlight the positive stories, the benefits of running and inspire women to take on ultra marathons.
Ultimately, we wanted to help to set a standard for women at running events and drive positive change in the industry.
To achieve this we launched a press campaign to raise awareness of the research on the challenges faced by women. And used expert running coaches, psychologists and hormone experts to help dispel myths and support women with ultra running.
We also seeded inspiring stories of Ultra 50:50 challengers and provided key media contacts with race places at trail series events so that they could report on their experiences first-hand.
After the ‘news story’ had reached key running titles and women’s health publications, we used the challenger case studies and experts to generate longer form features.
From raising initial awareness, our strategy was about keeping momentum and encouraging deeper interest in the subject.
Positive media vibes
30
pieces of coverage
522k
estimated online views
436m
combined audience
Generating attention for gender equality
The media response to the initial ‘news story’ was incredibly positive across key running and sports titles and with national media outlets.
The coverage led with the Ultra 50:50 Challengers stories, as their inspirational journeys brought to life the barriers they had overcome to participate in an ultra-distance event.
The theme of gender equality in sports is a growing area of media coverage and the Ultra 50:50 campaign was able to capture the attention of key titles including The Daily Mail, Women’s Running, Hello, Stylist and Runners World.
We also saw media interest across running and fitness titles, and also national media outlets that were keen to report on the challenges related to female participation in ultra-distance events and initiatives around health, safety, preparation and representation.
There was also coverage in the trade media about how Threshold Sports is providing a commercially sustainable blueprint to increase female participation at their events.
In total, we helped to generate 30 pieces of press coverage with an estimated 522,000 views (on and offline) and an audience reach of 463 million.
