It was a record-winning day at the Vodafone Istanbul Half Marathon, where athletes took home more than a sense of accomplishment; each runner also received a digital sourvenir—their own personalized photos of key moments through the race. Organized by the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality and Sport Istanbul, the half marathon is an IAAF Gold Label road race that brings in thousands of runners from around Turkey and the world. Amdework Walelegn of Ethiopia set the Turkish all-comers record, winning the men’s race and clocking in a personal best of 59:50:03. Ababel Yeshane, also of Ethiopia, breezed across the finish line at 1:06:22, winning the women’s race by a margin of 38 seconds.

Amdework Walelegn’s record-breaking finish

Personalized Photos Capture the Moment

As a successful introduction to the Turkish market, iRewind was there to capture not just the winning moments, but everything in between. Professional photographers were strategically placed along the 21km track, where they took snapshots of the athletes’ progress. Their cameras shared the data with iRewind’s proprietary personalized video software, which uses optical character recognition (OCR) to automatically sort massive amounts of data into categories predefined by event organizers. The software recognized each runner by their bib number and instantly processed the metadata before personalizing and uploading the photos to the cloud.

Personalized photos at the Vodafone Istanbul Half Marathon

Speed Matters

The first personalized photos were posted online within minutes of the runners crossing the finish line. Shortly after, the digital souvenirs were embedded to the Kos Istanbul portal, which was created specifically to provide participants with ongoing access to their pictures and instant social media and sharing capabilities. The Kos Istanbul portal also serves to connect running enthusiasts to news and events, including the registration page of the 40th Istanbul Marathon, which will take place on November 11th.

Runners greet the mayor and event organizers

Ongoing Engagement

The online portal proved successful at encouraging post-run engagement. Within 24 hours of the half marathon, participants had already downloaded or shared around 60% of the images posted to the Koş Istanbul website, averaging more than 3 page visits per user. The pattern continued over the next ten days as runners revisited the site to view their successes and to access the valuable information hosted on the site.

We’re grateful to Saatchi & Saatchi for the invitation to take part in the Vodafone Istanbul Half Marathon. Not only was it a lot of fun, we live to celebrate the athleticism and determination of the runners by providing them with personalized photos of their race. After all, they created their great moments; we captured them.

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