Reebok's online community and free music makes it easy to run

Firefox and Opera compatible.

Client: Reebok
Creative Agency: Molecular
Media Agency: Carat Fusion

I ran track in high school and college, and once you get around runners you know they are a different breed of people. They wake up at ridiculous times in the morning to run a ridiculous amount of miles. They eat weird goop to give them more energy and spend way too much money on running socks. This site is not for that type of runner.

This new online community is made for those who want to jog, chat and share the running experience with friends. Combined with an outdoor and TV campaign, this demographically relevant online community features running trails in your area, as well as photos you can upload and share, a forum for comments and music you can sample for your workout playlist. You can download the playlists, rate them and even see how many others have downloaded them. The trails in your area are also rated and tell you exactly how many miles they are, and there are also comments from other users who have run the trails.

The site is meant to inspire people to be more active and involved in the running community by giving them the tools to "run easy."
-- Krisserin Canary, associate editor, iMedia Communications

Creative Showcase is meant to be a teaching tool and an inspiration for our readers. We comment only on creative that we really love. Our panelists discuss what makes it great, but if they feel there were missed opportunities that would have made it better, we invite them to mention those. And finally, we seek out a wide range of opinions that reflect the marketplace for the panel, in order to provide constructive, useable feedback for agencies, clients and others involved in these creative pieces.

Reebok embraces user-generated content with this fun and casual mini site. The idea behind the site is a clever one: Bring runners together to share routes, swap music playlists and chat about running easy. And while I do like the idea, I think this site falls flat in several areas.

If there's one thing I'm picky about, it's navigation. Site navigation should be simple because you want users to focus on the site's imagery and content, not waste time trying to figure out how to get from A to B. An atypical navigation, like the one shown on Goruneasy.com, risks confusing users who may cycle through the options several times to make sure they haven't missed something.

These sections (Where, Create your run) allow users to search for and post run routes, and they have good points and bad points. Good point: Locating new routes to run is simple. Good point: Creating and posting runs is also simple. Bad point: Users must create a profile and log in before contributing. Such a practice may create the exact problem it seeks to curb. Valuable contributors who are short on time may bypass the sign-up process, while people with too much time on their hands -- and little else -- may become the site's chief copywriters.

(click to view)The Talk page is indicative of another downside of user-generated content. There are no robust postings, only comments such as "Run hard" and "Take a break." Also, the layout of the responses is difficult to read because certain critical marks of punctuation -- commas, quotation marks -- are missing.

Overall, I give Reebok credit for launching a mini site driven purely by user-generated content; however, I think more attention could have been given to the interface (simpler navigation) and design (more visual appeal and ease of use). I also feel that Reebok could have created a more robust experience by soliciting runners to create detailed profiles, runs (with photos), and playlists to get the site started and set the tone for just how fun and informative a site like this could be.
-- Cara Rickard, copywriter, Ripple Effects Interactive

The positioning and execution behind this are smart. It owns a category that had not been claimed (non-hardcore running) and exhibits a style of casual, friendly running that takes place everywhere, everyday. It's a jog, a chat and a view.

The site is a hub for affinity. Its easy creation of maps and sharing is an excellent concept, maybe not new, but I am guessing new to many who make up this target audience. The features included are strong, though the photos do not appear to have much traction. There a good number of maps, but not a ton of comments or an active community here.

Having worked with Google Maps and Waypoint creation, I haven't seen another this simple. The instructional video is a great idea.

The rest of the user experience felt like it needed a bit more attention. The single map-like interface is a nice nod to maps themselves, but it left more to be desired. I think the implicit navigation could have been better with the use of the same nomenclature as what is on the page. The draggable "views" was fine, but I would have loved to be able to drag the page itself just like a Google Map. My other gripe is that there is a bug within the implementation of registration. From section to section, if I needed a registered state, it would often make me log in again.

All that being said, this site as a hub to the idea is the right thing to do. It has some nice features, but much like its subject, it feels a bit unfinished and was done a bit too casually. In the end, it is "non-hardcore" too.
-- Glen Sheehan, group creative director, T3