Shalane Flanagan is an Olympic medalist and an accomplished distance runner, but she made herself a legend in the five boroughs in 2017 after becoming the first U.S. woman to win the New York City Marathon in 40 years.
Now she’s helping Mastercard and its small business partners stay ahead of the pack.
The New York Road Runners (NYRR), the nonprofit group that organizes the marathon each year, added Mastercard as a sponsor in 2020. In 2021, Mastercard brought Flanagan on board to offer cardholders virtual training sessions for the marathon and a Priceless Start that allows 25 marathon-running cardholders to buy the chance to run with Flanagan ahead of the field at the beginning of the race.
“I’m now in active service and I’m a coach, so I very much understand what marathoners are going through in training because I did it for years,” said Flanagan, who’s an assistant distance and cross-country coach at the University of Oregon. “All the nuances and little idiosyncrasies of getting ready for race day can be overwhelming, and sometimes a nice voice of reason and knowing someone’s been in your shoes kind of helps.”
From Tata Consultancy Services affixing its name to the TCS New York City Marathon and powering its app, to United Airlines providing interactive maps while New Balance sponsors live mobile feeds of runners from fans’ smartphones, multiple brands leave their mark on the event during race day. For Mastercard to stand out, it has to draw cardholders, small business partners and spectators into the mix by making them part of the experience.
That means handing out free radios, giving people markers and poster board for signs, setting up cheer zones along the marathon route or placing their partners in the race itself.
“New York Road Runners is able to make this the biggest and boldest race in the world because of our partners like Mastercard,” said Rob Simmelkjaer, CEO of the NYRR. “Together, we are constantly looking for ways to build community and bring the event to life for participants and spectators.”
Runners’ high
When Anne Valentzas was at the beginning of her career in marketing in New York in the early ‘90s, she became a member of the New York Road Runners. In the years that followed, she ran two New York City Marathons and hundreds of other races, with a wall of medals to prove it.
Admitting that she’s “not fast, but I am passionate,” Valentzas has remained active as a runner and remained close to the New York City Marathon as Westchester-based Mastercard’s svp of consumer marketing and sponsorships.
“It is a unique event, because everybody can participate, assuming you can train,” Valentzas said. “it’s really a very democratized race, so that makes it really special, but it’s also special because it’s New York … this is our backyard.”
Mastercard has sought to make its marketing and perks similarly accessible to its New York audience. It’s teamed with Flanagan to offer fans, small business owners and runners pre-race exclusive virtual training sessions, meet-and-greets at Mastercard’s space at the Marathon Expo at the Jacob Javits Convention Center, a speaking engagement at the Expo the Saturday before the race and the Priceless Start on the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge to kick off the marathon.
“Originally, they never intended for me to actually run the marathon, but I had thrown it out there that I’d rather run and just soak up the day, especially if it’s good weather,” Flanagan said. “I would maybe reconsider for poor weather—I’m a fair-weathered runner now—but I love that they let me indulge in being part of the actual event.”
Crowding the field
That’s just the beginning of the brand’s own marathon of marketing events.
The company and its partners at Citizens held a small business panel with personal finance writer Jean Chatzky on the Monday before the race. With help from media partners at WABC, it introduced the metro area to two owners of small fitness businesses—Brashfit owner CJ Hernandez and SIN Workouts owner Vanessa Martin—who’ll each be at the Priceless Start and will be running in the marathon. They’ve also been mentored by Mastercard and received access to its Digital Doors 2.0 toolkit for businesses.
“The New York City Marathon is a cultural force in our community: It supports travel, tourism, culinary, entertainment and it’s all buzzing this week,” Valentzas said. “This course passes thousands of small businesses, so we want to acknowledge that and recognize and support our small businesses.”
From Nov. 2-4 at the Marathon Expo, Mastercard and Citizens is hosting a Small Business Boulevard where fans can make signs to support runners, but also shop at businesses from the city. This year’s lineup includes storefronts from Brooklyn Tea, ANYBAG and Effie’s Paper. Outside the Expo, Mastercard recruited Jaeki Cho of the lovely, reverent NYC food and culture platform Righteous Eats and Ted Zhar’s “what do you do for a living” person-on-the-street Tik Tok to highlight small business owners along the marathon route.
On the day of the race itself, Mastercard sets up “Cheer Zones” along Mile 8 and Mile 16 with free swag and reserved seating. For cardholders content to wait it out in the finish area at Central Park, there are 10,000 free earpiece radios from Live Sports Radio tuned to the WABC-TV/ESPN2 broadcast for updates.
“Mastercard’s integration into this year’s race is paramount to elevating the spectator experience,” NYRR’s Simmelkjaer said, “and we can’t wait to see fans getting in on the action.”
